United Kingdom of Zombieland
by gayasawindow
Summary: Repost. Three months after a zombie apocolypse, Emily and Katie decide to leave Bristol after a death of a loved one. They run into Naomi and Effy en route to London, who are in search of a friend. Will they be able to drop their barriers and trust each other? Naomily and some Keffy.
1. London Calling

**This story was orignally posted in 2011. I wrote what I have of it over a couple years, always intending on writing it to completion and then always regretting that I gave up on it. I'll be slowly posting chapters as I slightly edit them then I'd like to finish it. I'll do my best, feel free to threaten terrible things in reviews to get me to finish it, or just tell me how much like it, both will work. If you've read it before, there will be no major plot changes, just editing for grammar and wording mostly, and occasionally the addition of a joke or clever line.**

**For new readers, one night in the peak of my Skins obsession I was watching the movie Zombieland and decided to put the Skins characters in that universe. Meaning the zombies act like they do in the movie, people get infected the same way, etc...****but mostly the feeling of the story in general. Which means that even though serious things happen and this story has serious themes, it is all done with an air of comedy, so don't take it too seriously in regards to a potentially unrealistic setting.**

**Thank you for reading, I hope you like it, please tell me if you do so it kicks my ass into finishing it.**

**Ch****apter 1 – London Calling**

The house seems old. After only three months of vacancy it looks like it has been empty for years. The smell of decay hardly even registers to me, I'm so used to it now. We both avoid the kitchen, knowing the horror that lies within it. I can still remember the pattern that the blood left on the walls and the floor.

I sit on my bed for a few minutes after I've packed up the things I came back for, staring around at the dusty belongings. It's strange that it's only been a few months since this life was taken from us and how quickly we've adapted to a new one, how quickly we _had_ to adapt that is. These days, having trouble adjusting means a quick death. If anyone doubted Charles Darwin, I'm sure they realized their error in the last seconds of their lives.

I take another look around the room and am overcome with the need to get the fuck out of this place. I grab my bag and walk out into the hallway in search of my sister.

"Katie? Where'd you go? Are you ready?" I pass James' old room and my heart jumps when I see a moving lump under the covers, but quickly discover that it's only Katie. When my heart quiets down I can hear her sobbing. It takes a second for me to compose myself, I need to stay strong for her and not break down. I walk slowly into the room and climb into the bed next to her. She immediately turns into me and hugs me tight, crying into my chest.

It had only been a couple weeks since James' death, it's what inspired us to leave the hotel we were hiding out in and come back here for a few things before finding a new place to stay.

"We should have saved him."

"It's not our fault, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time." I know my words aren't enough, but there's really nothing to say that will make this better. It takes every ounce of control I have to not cry, but I manage. I've spent so much time crying over the past few months only to learn that it doesn't help anything. I've been good at keeping myself emotionally numb lately, but being back in this house is bringing back too many memories of a life we have to let go. The decision that I will never come back here dawns on me quickly. No matter how long I live, how many people try to convince me, this will be the last time I see these walls.

It takes Katie at least fifteen minutes to relax, long enough for the smell of our little brother's old room to almost feel like home again. She sits up quickly, wiping the tears from her face, "Can we get the fuck out of here?"

I practically jump off the bed, eager to leave the house, "Yes, please. Got your bag?"

She sniffs and nods quickly while picking her bag and bloody baseball bat up from the floor. We hurry down the stairs and pause at the front door. "You ready?"

She takes a deep breath to calm herself, "Yeah…let's go."

The metal of the handgun scrapes my skin slightly as I pull it from the back of my pants. I peak through the windows looking for any sign of movement in the street before creaking the door open, poking my gun out first before my head. I wait there for a minute and then sneak out onto the porch, keeping the gun aimed and ready as I search our surroundings. The safety you feel with a gun in your hand is infinitely higher than something like a bat, and I'm glad I'm the one that gets to use it. Of course there was an argument over who should carry it when we found it, but after a quick shooting contest I proved to have the better aim. It's not that Katie isn't as good as me, it's that Katie is absolutely fucking dreadful.

I gesture to her again and she follows me swiftly and silently to the car. I check the backseat before we scramble into the car, locking the doors behind us. There are a few moments of uncomfortable silence, both of us trying to paint a picture of the new life we have in front of us. The picture in my mind has been finding its colors over the last few days, but I've been nervous to ask Katie what she thinks. Now, sitting in front of our past with nowhere to go, it seems to be our only option.

"Where do we go?"

"I've been thinking…"

Where the hell do you go when there are hardly any people left in the world? What are we going to do for the rest of our lives? Live alone in the middle of nowhere driving each other crazy? That can't be all we have left to look forward to.

"…we should go to London or something, a big city, there will be more people."

"That's stupid. More people means more zombies."

"So we're gonna stay here in this shithole and constantly be reminded of what we used to have? We need to go somewhere new. I don't want to hide out in the middle of nowhere by ourselves, we should be trying to find people, safety in numbers, you know?"

Katie crosses her arms and stares out the window. I'm practically holding my breath as I wait for her response.

After minutes of silence, she finally sighs heavily, "I don't know, I guess. We can go, but if it's too overrun we're leaving."

"Yes!" I start the car almost immediately, dancing in my chair a bit. My excitement isn't matched by Katie, but I don't care much, I'm sure she'll come around.

We decide to do a store run before starting a potentially long journey, a few minutes later we pull up in front of a store we know we haven't hit yet, hoping not many others have either. We park the car right in front of the door in case we need a quick escape and approach slowly, weapons raised, looking through the windows for movement before heading inside.

"It looks clear..." I step forward to push open the door but Katie grabs my wrist to stop me.

"Hold on, I've got this."

Katie kicks the door open and stealthily creeps into the store, ready to attack anything that moves.

I roll my eyes as I walk in casually after her, "Bit dramatic, don't you think?"

"Fuck off! Just because you have the gun doesn't mean I can't bust into places like you do all the time, it looks fun."

"I have never kicked open an unlocked door."

"Whatever, you know it was awesome, bitch."

I can't help but laugh at her as we look around the store. It looks deserted, most of the shelves are either emptied or toppled over. The lights are flickering and humming suspiciously, making the place as eerie as possible.

"Hello?" Katie hits her bat on the ground a couple times. The good thing about zombies is that they aren't the smartest and they're definitely not subtle, they'll come running at the first sign of human life. After a minute with no resulting charge, we figure we're safe for now.

"Let's split up, speed this up." We both grab a trolley and head our separate ways. I call to Katie over my shoulder, "Try to find some towels!"

"Towels? Why the fuck do we need towels?"

"Haven't you read Hitchhiker's Guide? They're the most massively useful thing in the universe."

"Are you serious? You're such a fucking nerd, I don't even know what to say to that."

"Just get the fucking towels!"

I stroll through the damaged aisles, smiling at myself for a minute at the fact that I'm grocery shopping with a gun in my hand. When I see that some of the refrigerated sections are still working and I practically run to see what's still in stock, almost squeeing when I see that a small selection of beer remains. I leave my gun on the trolley, rip open a case, and pull out a bottle. Cold beverages are hard to come by, and I haven't had a cold beer in at least two months. After a couple tries I manage to get the cap off with the metal of my belt, I take a slow sip and revel in the delicious taste. Everytime I find something like this, I know it very well might be the last time.

When I raise the bottle to my lips for another drink, a hand wraps around my face and instantly covers my mouth. My first instinct is to elbow my attacker in the stomach, but I stop mid-swing when I feel the barrel of a gun press into my back and a rough voice in my ear.

"Don't fucking move. If you yell or drop that bottle…you're dead. We wouldn't want your little friend hearing us."

My heart is hammering against my chest as I stare at my abandoned gun on the trolley, why the fuck did I let it leave my hand for even a second? His gun leaves my back only for a moment as he wrenches the beer bottle from my hand, spilling some as he makes me lean over with him as he puts it quietly on the ground. _Okay, just relax and think_. Would he actually shoot me if I made an attempt to yell for Katie? I have to assume his plans revolve around sex, otherwise he would have already killed me or told me what he wants from me. If it's sex he wants, he wouldn't kill me before he got any, right? Or he could just kill me and move on to Katie…

My mind is made up for me as he drags me towards an Employee Only door. She'll never find me back there unless she's looking for me, and she won't hear anything he does to me, so I have no choice but to at least try to get her attention. Right before he opens the door I jerk my head and bite down hard on his hand, trying to get a yell out before he reacts.

"KAT—"

His hand is back on my mouth before I get the whole word out and he pulls me violently through the door. The yell was short but I'm confident it would travel through the building, echoing off the walls and empty shelves. Even if it takes her a few minutes to find me, at least now she's looking. He drags me around a few corners into an open warehouse area and slams me against the concrete wall. The back of my head starts throbbing painfully, I think I can feel the warmth of blood dripping through my hair, but I can't be sure it's real. I blink my eyes a few times, trying to clear my vision, and when the fog subsides I discover that I'm face to face with my attacker for the first time. His face is only inches from mine, I watch his lifeless blue eyes scan my body.

"I told you not to fucking scream." He grips my shirt with his gun hand, the metal digging into my throat as he uses his other hand to punch me in the stomach. I buckle over, grabbing my stomach and gasping for breath. He jerks me back up by the shirt and punches me square in the face. The last thing I see before the pain blinds me is the ring on his hand flying towards me.

The tears fall uncontrollably from my eyes and mix with the blood on my face as I still try to catch my breath. I've never been punched in the face before, I'm sure my nose is completely broken. I try to blink through the tears and clear the fog from my mind but it doesn't work. I'm vaguely aware of a dirty rag being shoved roughly into my mouth. I cough as remnants of the cloth slip down my throat a little and I try my best to remove it with my tongue.

He shoves his face into my hair and inhales deeply, "You smell good...you don't know how long it's been since I've been with a girl like you." I try to do anything...spit in his face, lift my arms to punch him, at least come up with a snarky comeback, but my muscles don't seem to be cooperating with me yet.

He gropes me clumsily with his free hand, slipping it under my shirt for a better feel of my tits. As he starts fumbling to undo my pants I can finally breathe fully, and I feel my head start to clear.

_Fuck this_. I'd rather die than let this fucker take advantage of me like this. My hands ball into fists as the anger builds. I take a few seconds to plan my attack, I have to get that gun out of his hand or I'm toast. As I'm running through my options I see movement over his shoulder and I immediately relax when I'm confident it's Katie, I know I'll be safe now. She's moving quickly and quietly towards us with her bat raised, so I ready myself for a blow, preparing to fight for the gun.

There's a sickening crunching noise when Katie swings and makes contact with his back. He yells in pain and falls in to me. I quickly take advantage and turn, grabbing the barrel of the gun with one hand and his wrist in the other, twisting and pulling to wrench it from his grasp. The gun discharges once during our struggle but I don't even flinch. I manage to get it from him when Katie hits him again yelling, "FUCK YOU!"

I finally yank it from his fingers and back away a few steps, making sure Katie is at least a few feet away from him before pulling the trigger. The gunshot echoes through the empty space, the bullet hits him right in the forehead.

We stand there, breathing heavily for a few seconds, just staring at the dead body, until Katie pulls me into a hug. "Oh my God, are you okay?" The rush of the fight completely wiped the pain from my thoughts, but now it returns with a vengeance. My whole face is burning and throbbing, I raise my hand and find that almost half of it is covered in blood. Katie shrugs off her sweater and starts wiping the blood from my face.

As she tries to clean me up I stare at the lifeless body on the ground. "Holy shit…I killed him." I've beaten and shot countless zombies, but this felt different, he had actually been alive a few minutes ago. He was alive and breathing, and I took that from him.

"Emily he was about to fucking rape you, I think just maybe he deserved it. And you're hurt, badly."

She notices my still horrified face and pulls at my chin, forcing me to look at her, "Emily look at me. It's okay, he was a bad person, he was about to rape you for fuck's sake, and he probably would have killed you after, and then done the same to me. We need to get out of here, I think you need stitches on your cheek."

She pulls me through the store by the hand, and I walk numbly behind her. She sits me on the hood of the car and digs through our stuff looking for medical supplies. It didn't take long to realize that we needed to learn how to take care of ourselves. We scoured every medical book we could find in the library within the first week of being on our own, teaching ourselves how to treat different wounds and how to put in stitches.

I watch the sunset and let the evening air calm my nerves as Katie searches. It's both aggravating and comforting that the world is still so beautiful even after everything has gone to shit. Katie returns and finishes cleaning the wound on my cheek. I hiss in pain when she spreads it a little, testing how deep it is.

"It's pretty deep, I'm gonna stitch it." I nod, knowing it's going to hurt. I try to hold the tears back as she puts in stitch after stitch through the sensitive skin. When she's done she pulls away, examining her work. "Fuck I'm good at this, I should have been a nurse."

"How do I look?" I try to smile but it hurts too much.

"Honestly? Like shit. It's safe to say I'll be the hotter twin for at least a few weeks. How do you feel?"

"Honestly? Like shit." We both laugh but again I have to stop because of the pain. "My stomach kills, he punched me there to, and he slammed me pretty hard against the wall, so my head is pounding, and then there's my face, which feels like it's not even really there anymore."

"Stay in the car, keep his gun, I'll go back in, get your gun and get the food and shit."

"Not by yourself, I'm coming with you. We can't separate."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, just give me some pills."

I pop a couple pain relievers and we head back in. Almost immediately I regret coming in, the movement makes my head spin, but I hide it from Katie. The first thing I do when we get back to where I left my gun is pick the beer up off the floor and down it almost completely in one go.

Katie picks up the gun, "At least we have two guns now."

"Too bad you're still a horrible shot."

"Fuck off..."

We quickly finish gathering what we need and head back outside. Katie checks the other cars, figuring that the wanker drove here and he might have some useful stuff stashed away. She finds a few more clips to the stolen gun, which should last us for a while. When we finally settle into the car I check myself in the mirror for the first time. The cut on my left cheek is a couple inches long, running diagonally across my cheek, starting near the bridge of my nose. My left eye has already blackened significantly, my right isn't as bad, but still has a bruise forming around it. It actually looks kind of badass.

Katie interrupts the examination of my face, "We should wait until the morning to leave, we won't make it before it gets dark."

Driving in the dark is not only more difficult, but infinitely more terrifying than traveling during the day.

"Yeah, should we just stay here?"

"I suppose, wouldn't be any more or less safe somewhere else really." Katie starts the car and pulls to the back of the building for slightly more cover. We crack the windows just enough to stick the barrel of a gun through and then recline our chairs.

After a few minutes of staring at the window at the last remnants of daylight, I realize I never thanked Katie.

"Katie…?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks…for saving me, fixing me up."

We turn to face each other at the same time and she reaches her hand out to grip mine tightly, "Thanks for letting me sob into your shirt for twenty minutes earlier, I know you didn't want to be there."

We smile at each other for a second and she turns away, "Now go to sleep bitch."

.

* * *

.

"Effy! Get in here! You're gonna like this…" Effy appears in the doorway and her mouth falls open slightly when she sees what I discover. She crosses the room quickly and runs her fingers along the metal in awe.

"Bullets?" I proudly gesture to the metal drawers and open the top one, revealing a portion of the ammunition stash for all the guns on the wall. She turns to me with a huge smile on her face and cheers and jumps into my arms, wrapping her legs around me. You can't blame us for being excited, we've been looting houses for over two weeks now looking for guns to steal. At first we figured we'd look at stores with hunting equipment and police stations for weapons, but everyone else thought of that as well, so they were completely emptied.

"This is fucking amazing!" She's still in my arms, my hands on her bum to keep her from falling. "Let's stay here tonight and celebrate, I'm sick of sleeping in the car."

"You think we'll be safe in here?"

"The house looks to be in good shape, we just have to make sure there's no broken windows or anything, and we should be fine. Plus the electricity _and_ the water still works, so you know what that means…"

"Showers!" I spin her around for a second, "Thank God because you smell of something, and it ain't roses."

She laughs and untangles herself from me, "I wouldn't be talking, Campbell."

We get some clothes and everything else we'll need for the night from the car and I head for the shower. I hurriedly peel off my dirty, slightly bloody clothes and step into the stream of chilly water.

"Fuck yes…" Even cold showers aren't easy to come by these days, so when the opportunity arises it is never taken for granted. I could stay in here all day but don't want to leave Effy waiting.

I enter the living room to find the guns moved to the coffee table and Effy setting up pillows and blankets on the couch.

"Something wrong with the bed?"

"It's a mess, blood everywhere, I've made the executive decision that we'll be sleeping down here."

"I'll finish, go shower."

.

.

.

A couple hours later we're in the kitchen, both freshly showered, raiding the cabinets. Most of what we find is stale, but we manage to find some decent food and a whole lot of wine. The finding of the weapons has put us in a good mood for the first time in a while, so we dance and sing around the kitchen as we cook what we can and drink the wine. However we're careful not to get too drunk or make too much noise so we don't attract any attention to the house.

When our food is done we take it to the living room and I scan the DVD collection. "They have pretty shit taste. How about Milk? Get our gay on."

"The gay is always on when you're in the room."

"Well aren't you hilarious? And I wouldn't be talking, you seemed pretty gay yourself just a few days ago." I look over my shoulder at her and wink as I pop the movie in. Last week was the third time we've slept together since all this happened. It's not like we're falling in love with each other now that we're alone in the world, we just rely on each other for everything else, so why not the occasional drunken fuck?

It's funny thinking back on the first time it happened. We were just sitting and drinking in the car, having parked somewhere for the night, a completely normal evening, and Effy simply said, "I'm horny, want to make out?" About a minute after I realized she was serious we were tangled up in the backseat.

Effy's laugh brought me back to the present, "You have a point there." I sat next to her on the couch, pushing guns out of the way on the coffee table to make my room for my feet. We ate and drank and then loaded the guns as we watched the movie, I regretted my choice as the movie neared the end, remembering how fucking depressing it is. Effy is half asleep when the credits start rolling so I get up to shut off the lights and the television.

I grab her shoulder and shake her lightly, "Effy, lay down, let's go to bed." She mumbles something unintelligible and sprawls out facing the back of the couch. I lay down beside her, pulling a blanket over us and snuggling up behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist.

It was nice how we didn't have to discuss our sleeping arrangements, we both assumed that we'd be sleeping in the same bed since our very first night alone together. It's a lot better to wake up from a nightmare or to a zombie in the house when there's someone right next to you to help. The cuddling just came natural after a while, it was surprisingly comforting.

I bury my face in her hair and inhale the sweet scent of the shampoo, "Fuck yes, I love shower days." I feel her shake as she giggles sleepily. Falling asleep to the sweet smell is a very welcome change to the smell of blood and dirt.

I breathe in Effy's scent and close my eyes, imagining that I'm cuddling with an actual girlfriend in our own house rather than hiding out from zombies with Effy. I never really thought about my love life before all this happened, but now that the possibility of finding love is basically gone, I miss it. As much as I love Effy, it's not the same. Our bond is stronger than ever though, nothing compares to the bond that is formed between people depending on each other for survival. I don't think I'd choose any other person in the world to be stuck in this situation with. But as I fall asleep I think about all the girls that I could have dated but ran away from, wondering if I would have fallen in love with them if I had stuck around.

.

.

.

I wake up to the sound of glass shattering. I'm off the couch in a second, grabbing a gun from the table.

"This is bloody ridiculous, can't even get a full night's sleep anymore…" There's someone, scratch that, some_thing_, breaking through the window in the room. I can tell from the disgusting sounds he's making that it is in fact a zombie, no human can make sounds that vile. I raise the shotgun to my shoulder, squinting through the darkness to aim for the head. I pull the trigger, sending him flying back to the ground.

Effy shoots up from the couch in a sleepy panic, "What's going on?!"

"It's okay, I think it was just one, he's gone."

I walk to the window and shoot him again, just to be sure, "Tosser…"

My heart is racing, I wade through the darkness looking for an armchair, there's no way I'll be falling back asleep anytime soon.

"What should we do about the window?"

"Just go back to sleep, I'll stay up and keep watch."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, go to sleep."

I lean back in the chair with the shotgun laying across my lap. I watch her as she turns over and her breathing eventually evens out. It's amazing how much progress Effy has made mentally. When your life becomes a daily fight for survival you don't have time for any inner demons. Animals don't spend their days contemplating if they're happy or not, the only thing on their mind is staying alive. Find food, find shelter, avoid predators, simple as that. Both of us have been reduced to more primal versions of ourselves to make it through this. Not that her thoughts are all about fluffy bunnies and butterflies these days, but she's miles better than what she used to be.

The sun starts to rise after a few hours of struggling to stay awake, so I decide to just start my day. I find some coffee in the kitchen and put on a brew, hoping it's not too stale. I stand above the coffee maker and inhale the delicious smell. One of the little things I miss most from my past life is the smells. The air is now so often filled with death and decay it's rare to smell something truly delicious.

Effy pads up behind me, "I haven't woken up to the smell of coffee in ages."

"I know, I miss it."

The only sugar I found amongst the cupboards was swarming with little bugs, so we have to settle for black, bitter coffee. The mood is drastically different from last night, both of us thinking about what lies ahead. The silence is ringing in my ears until Effy finally breaks it, speaking aloud the question we've both had on our minds for weeks.

"Do you really think he's alive?"

I sigh heavily, "Yeah, yeah I think so."

"How do you know?"

"I don't. But I believe it. I don't think anything could kill that kid." It's the truth, I can't imagine James Cook letting anything take him down, including a zombie. I don't know how, but I have this feeling in me that he's still out there, and I think Effy feels it to.

"Then why hasn't he come back?"

"He probably assumes we're dead like everyone else and doesn't want to face it. You know he always underestimated us."

We pack up the SUV in the driveway in silence, Effy taking the driver's seat since I'm a little sleep deprived. I can tell that Effy is still a little uneasy, so I place a comforting hand on her knee. "We're gonna find him, I know it."

She smiles softly and nods, "I hope so."

**PS In the original version of this story there were highly explicit sex scenes. I will tell you right now they will largely be removed because I admit that I am not good at writing them. I'm keeping an M rating for violence and the light sex scenes that will exist. I'd like to save myself the stress of writing them and save you the painful reading of an awkward sex scene. So really, it's a win-win.**


	2. Stand off

**Chapter 2 – Stand off**

I couldn't sleep at all last night. Between struggling to find a good position that didn't agitate my wounds and thinking about the lifeless blue eyes of that prick, I only got an hour or two of sleep. The sun is coming up now, so I decide to just enjoy the sunrise rather than tossing and turning. I rub the sleepiness out of my eyes and curse myself when I accidently rub against the stitches on my cheek, these bruises will take some getting used to. I check my face in the mirror, my right eye is only a little bruised, but my left is horrible, luckily it's mostly just bruised and not too swollen.

I dig around in the back seat, trying to be as quiet as possible to not wake Katie. After I pop a couple pain relievers I grab a pack of cigarettes and a towel and sneak out of the car. I place the gun on my stomach and lay on the hood of the car, using the towel as a pillow. Smoking was never really a habit for me before, but now I figure I'll die long before the cancer catches up to me, so when I come across a pack these days I don't pass it up.

It's amazing how much warm weather can seem to change everything, even though the world has gone to shit, the sunlight on my face is making me feel oddly peaceful. The takeover started at the end of February, so the first few days of spring were practically heaven, and now it's approaching summer. No more worrying about building fires or heavy coats, life is infinitely easier now.

The car door opens and Katie joins me on the hood, pulling her legs in tight to her body and cradling her head on her knees. "Feeling better?"

"Not really. Hardly slept last night, couldn't get that fucker's face out of my mind."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. If you had been two minutes later it would be a different story obviously. But considering I got away with just a fucked up face I guess I'm pretty lucky."

She smiles, "That's true," She lays back to match my position with a smug sigh, "What would you do without me?"

I laugh and give her a slap on the leg. Our laughter dies down and she squirms around next to me, "God this is fucking uncomfortable."

"I would say grab a towel and use it as a pillow, but you're not allowed to use them because you didn't think we'd need them."

"Fuck off." The smile is wiped off her face when we hear a sound in the distance and we both sit up, "Did you hear that?" It sounded like a scream, a human scream.

"Yeah…I think it came from behind the store, we should check it out."

"Fuck no we shouldn't!"

"Someone could be in trouble!"

"Yeah and _we'll_ be in trouble if we go over there! Don't confuse bravery with stupidity Emily. You don't have to be the hero all the time, we need to be careful."

I'm about to argue but we're interrupted by another scream, this time closer. We look around, searching for the source, when a woman comes running from the side of the store towards the street, oblivious to our presence, a zombie chasing right behind her. I flip onto my stomach, aiming over the top of the car to get a shot off, but I'm too late. The woman is tackled before I can even get him in my sights, her head slammed against the concrete and blood splattered everywhere. The zombie plants himself on top of her, tearing at her to get to her insides.

The sight is gruesome, but all I can do is stare down the gun at them, thinking about how we could have stopped this. It was _one _zombie, it would have taken one shot and that woman would be fine. I can't help but resent Katie a little right now, she wasn't willing to endanger herself _at all_ to help another human being.

"Emily! Shoot him."

He hasn't seen us yet, still preoccupied with his latest kill. I shake off my thoughts and aim, but then stop and hold the gun out to Katie. "No, you do it."

"I can't get that shot, he's too far away."

"You have to learn someday, come on." I shove the gun into her hands and pat the top of the car, encouraging her to mirror my position. "Lay here to steady yourself." She groans but complies, flipping over onto her stomach.

"Take your time and aim carefully, exhale just before you pull the trigger."

I watch her as she watches the beast, tearing the poor woman apart. She exhales slowly and pulls the trigger, but hits the side of the building a good 5 feet from him. "Fuck!"

The zombie looks up, guts hanging from his mouth, and spots us. He gets off the woman and bolts at us. Katie holds the gun out to me and I grab it quickly. By the time I pull the trigger he's close enough for it to be an easy shot, and I get him in the chest. He falls forward onto his knees, feebly trying to get up. I hop off the car and take a few steps towards him, this time shooting him in the head and he collapses into a still heap.

I slowly turn back to Katie, knowing she'll be pissed at herself, "At least you can kick some ass with a bat…" I knew it wouldn't do much to cheer her up, but it was all I could think of.

She pushes herself off the car forcefully, "Let's get out of here, I'll drive since you didn't sleep."

"Thanks." I flinch slightly when the car door slams, and walk around to the passenger side with a final glance at the dead woman.

We've been driving on the motorway for about 10 minutes, going half the speed we usually would since we have to weave around abandoned cars and occasional dead bodies. I take a drink of water and then look around the car, realizing that this is our second to last bottle. "Shit Katie we forgot to get water."

"Fuck…should we turn around?"

"Yeah, just in case. London could be in ruins for all we know, who knows when we'll find a store that hasn't been completely emptied." My eyes scan the cars stopped in the middle and side of the road. "Actually hold on, pull over."

"What? Why?"

"That car back there was stocked, let's look in it."

She pulls over a good twenty yards from the vehicle. I turn in my seat and squint so I can see through the slightly tinted windows of the red SUV. The back of the car is packed almost to the ceiling. "It probably belongs to someone, let's just turn back."

"If the person it belongs to is still alive, don't you think they'd be in it? Or at least near it? No one would leave that big of a stash unprotected."

"True, but they could be around here somewhere."

"Or they could be dead. How about we wait a couple minutes, see if they come back, if not, we investigate."

"Fine, whatever." We sit in silence for a few minutes, scanning the trees on the side of the motorway for the return of the owners.

"I think it's clear, let's go."

We grab our weapons and walk to the SUV, listening for any sign of people or zombies. We creep up to the vehicle and peak in the windows. "Holy shit…" There's food, water and a shitload of weapons, and who knows what else is buried within the blankets.

I test the doors but they're both locked, so I wander around to the driver's side and pull the handle, smiling when it opens. I'm about to open it fully but once again I feel a gun press into my skin, this time on the back of my neck. _This shit two days in a row? Seriously?_

"Put your gun down bitch." At least it's a girl this time, that seriously lessens my chances of being the victim of attempted rape. She sounds young, probably around my age. I hear a quick scuffle and voices on the other side of the car and can see Katie through the windows of the vehicle, pointing a gun at someone I can't see. At least she appears to be in a better position than me.

I raise my hands out to my side in surrender, hoping that's good enough for her and she won't actually make me put it down. It's crazy how naked I feel these days without a gun in my hand, "I said _put it down_." She shoves the barrel harder into my neck with every word. I slowly lower my hand and drop the gun when it's a couple feet from the ground, it clanks pathetically on the cement. "Trying to steal our shit? Not today."

A warm hand grips my shoulder tightly and the gun moves to my head as she pushes me around the front of the car. The grip is rough, but for some reason it doesn't feel dangerous, she either doesn't know what she's doing or doesn't actually want to hurt me. We walk around the car to find Katie in a stand-off with a pretty brunette. The brunette's face is unreadable as she looks down the barrel of her shotgun at my sister.

I'm surprised with myself at how calm I feel. It might be because this is exactly how I would react if I came back to my car and found someone about to nick my things; I wouldn't actually have the intention of hurting anybody unless they posed a more imminent threat. "We thought the car was abandoned, I'm sorry. Just let me get my gun and we'll leave."

"How do I know you won't off us right away?"

"Uhh because we're not murderers. We were just looking for water." Nice one Katie, you're not very convincing in that argument when you're pointing a gun at them.

"Katie, lower your gun."

She looks at me incredulously, "These crazy bitches have guns to our heads, they could kill us any second I'm not lowering shit!"

"Because we were about to rob them. Put the fucking gun _down_ Katie, you're making this worse."

The brunette speaks up, "Yeah _Katie_, put the gun down."

"Fuck off princess, how about you tell your friend to back off." For the first time the girl shows some emotion as an amused smile grows on her face.

I scoff and roll my eyes, _this is so fucking pointless_. "This is ridiculous! How about everyone lowers their weapons so we can talk like normal people? We're all adults here, let's act like it." After a few seconds the hand leaves my neck, but I can still feel the gun against my head. "I'm going to step away and turn around so we can talk face to face."

When there's no objection I take half a step forward so the gun is no longer against my skin and slowly turn. Once again, the first thing I take in are the blue eyes of my attacker, but this time it's entirely different. Yesterday I turned to find hollow, lifeless eyes, but hers are breathtaking, the kind you could stare at for years and never get tired of. As I take in the rest of her I have to admit to myself that she is absolutely beautiful, even though she's holding a gun to me.

Right when I turned around she gasped slightly when she caught sight of my face. Of course my face is bruised to shit for the first time I meet a beautiful woman in three months. Somehow I manage to tear my gaze away from her to look between the two strangers while I talk.

"My name is Emily, and this is my sister, Katie. We need water and saw your car, we waited a while for you to come back and when you didn't we assumed it was abandoned, but obviously it's not so we'll move on."

The blonde's eyes flash between me and Katie. "What do you think Eff?"

"I think they're fine. If Katie here lowers her weapon, we'll lower ours."

Katie gives her a dirty look and doesn't move, making the girl's smile grow wider. "Katie! Don't be stupid!" She rolls her eyes and begrudgingly drops her hand.

The brunette shoulders her shotgun, "Sorted." The blonde drops the gun to her side, her eyes never leaving my face. I'm suddenly feeling very self-conscious, is my face that bad that she can't stop staring at it?

Katie walks to my side, crosses her arms and stares at the two strangers like they're zombies she'd like to be beating to death. I realize that I'm still holding my hands up awkwardly in surrender and I quickly put them to my sides. The blonde is still staring at me, I avert my eyes to the ground, not able to take the intensity pouring off of her.

"I'm really sorry, we wouldn't have tried to take anything if we had known it still belonged to someone."

"S'alright, no harm done." Her tone is softer, but still not necessarily friendly.

"Well…" I rock back and forth on my feet awkwardly for a second, "I guess we'll be going then."

"Wait…" I stop and watch the blonde walk around the car. She rummages in the backseat, her friend looking on, clearly just as confused as we are.

She returns to us with my gun and four bottles of water cradled awkwardly in her arms. "Here…" She leans towards me, tipping two of the bottles into my arms and handing me my gun. For a few seconds she's only a few inches from me, and holy fuck me does she smell good. She steps to Katie and gives her the other two bottles.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, we have plenty."

I smile, it's rare for someone to actually be nice to strangers these days, everyone is always so wary of each other. "Thanks."

"No problem." She gestures to her friend, "Let's go."

The brunette looks between us, "See you around ladies." They climb into the car and drive away.

I watch the car retreat down the road for a few seconds and then turn to Katie, proudly holding the bottles up, "See, I told you we'd get water."

She rolls her eyes and starts to walk back to the car, "Yeah next time leave out the part where there's guns to our heads."

"They didn't tell us their names, did they?" Even though we will probably never see them again, it would be nice to have at least learned their names.

"No, but blonde bitch called smiley bitch 'F,' whatever the fuck that means."

We reach the car and get back in, "They weren't bitches, they gave us water, they were nice."

"They held us at gunpoint."

"We would have done the same thing, they were just protecting themselves and their shit, nothing wrong with that."

"Whatever."

I consider arguing my point further, but ultimately decide against it. Instead I lay back and pop my feet onto the dash, hopefully I'll be able to get some more sleep during the drive. I replay what just happened in my mind and I can't help but smile when I think about the blonde girl, but it vanishes quickly when I remember that I'll probably never see her again.

I can see Effy watching me from the corner of my eye as I stare at the road, like she's waiting for me to say something. I try to focus on driving but I can only take her piercing gaze for so long. "Problem?"

"Feeling charitable today?"

"What?"

"You gave them water."

"Yeah, so? I was trying to be nice."

"Naomi I haven't seen you so much as smile at anyone but me in the past three months."

"What's wrong with trying to be nice for once?"

"Nothing, nothing at all, just a bit out of character." There was silence for a good minute before I noticed she was smirking at me. "Can't blame you for being smitten…not often we come across a pair of hot twins."

"Jesus Effy why are you so gay these days?"

She laughs, "I'm just saying, the one you had cornered, what was her name?"

"Emily." The name is out of my mouth almost before she finishes the sentence.

I'm not sure if my smile is in reaction to Effy's snicker at my quick reaction or just because I like hearing the name, "I'm just saying, Emily wore those black eyes pretty well."

I feel my smile grow wider, "Hell yeah she did."

"I knew it! You thought she was cute."

Cute was an understatement, the black eyes did nothing to hide the fact that she was seriously hot. My foot eases slightly on the gas pedal, I'm not sure if they're heading in the same direction as us, but there's no harm in slowing down a bit to give them a chance to catch up.

.

.

.

Twenty minutes later we pull over next to a big enough street sign. We got a hold of some spray paint and have been leaving messages behind for Cook, just in case he ever comes back and takes this route. We left messages at both our houses and all of our mutual friend's houses as well. Effy grabs a can and starts writing on the back of the sign, I get out to take a look in the cars around us for anything good to take. The search turns up useless and I lean against our car, waiting for Effy to finish.

I would _kill_ for a cigarette right now, I haven't come across a pack in a few weeks and I've been dying for one. It's the little things that have to be cherished these days, and having a pack of cigarettes is one of those things for me. The rumble of a car in the distance gets my attention and my head shoots up, hoping it's Emily and her sister. I stare at the car as it approaches, and I smile when they get close enough and I can see the twins sitting in the car.

Effy comes up next to me, placing the spray paint on the car, "All done."

"Okay…" I hardly even heard what she said, I'm too busy watching the car as it gets closer. Emily is in the passenger seat and she smiles at me as they pass. I guess they are heading in the same direction as us. I don't know why I'm so happy about it though, it's not like we're going to start being best buddies with them or something. Just because she's ridiculously beautiful doesn't mean we can trust her, as much as I'd like to.

"You done?"

I tear my eyes away from the retreating car, "With what?"

"Daydreaming about her."

I roll my eyes, "You done with the sign?"

She nods as I look over her shoulder at the sign, it says:

JAMES COOK-  
COMING TO  
LONDON TO  
LOOK FOR U  
NAOMI & EFFY  
1/6/2011

"Shall we go then?" I hurry into the car and start it up.

Effy laughs at me as she climbs in, "Just don't kill us trying to catch up to them."

**The stand off scene I think was the ****first that I thought of when I imagined this story, it will always hold a special spot in my heart along with a couple other scenes that I won't mention for those that are new readers :)**


	3. The Little Things

**Chapter 3 – The Little Things**

"Effy…Effy!...EFFY!" After I grab her shoulder and give her a violent shake, she finally opens her eyes. That girl could sleep through anything.

She sits up and brushes the hair from her face, "What's wrong?"

"We're almost out of gas, I don't think we'll make it there." The usual two and a half to three hour drive is turning into an almost six hour drive due to the clogged roads. I've been staring down the fuel gauge for the last half hour, deciding whether or not we need to stop.

"Where are we?"

"Near Reading."

"Fuck…I really don't want to find another car." Finding a car is a complete pain in the ass. Most of the cars are locked, and it would be useless to break the windows; you never know when you'll have to sleep in the car and having broken windows is too dangerous. The majority of the unlocked cars don't have keys in them, and if they do, there's only a small chance that it will have a decent amount of gas. When a car is finally found, there's the other pain in the ass of transferring all of our crap into it.

"Let's just siphon it, stop at the next service station and we'll look for a hose or something to use." I'm surprised I hadn't thought of that yet. But then again we've only had to look for a car once, so it hasn't been much of an issue. For the first couple months we were holed up in Effy's house and used her parent's car for the little driving we had to do, and we found this one when we were looting all those houses for weeks looking for weapons.

.

.

We cautiously get out of the car after I pull into the service station. I reach back through the open window and honk the horn to get the attention of any zombies in the area. We circle the car, guns raised, but nothing comes running out at us.

I can faintly here something coming from inside the gas station, "Can you hear that? Is it inside?"

"Yeah…I think so."

We slowly sneak inside, ready for an attack, and find the source of the noise. A female zombie is groaning feebly in the corner, its lower half trapped under a fallen shelf and a knife sticking out of its back. It must not have been there very long, usually these bastards can force their way out of anything. Or maybe it was just weakened too much from the knife and the shelf to have any strength left.

When she spots us she starts clawing at the ground, frantically trying to free herself. As Effy raises her gun I notice that the door to the refrigerator near the zombie's head is open and broken, only attached by the bottom hinge. I grab Effy's arm to stop her shot, "Watch this." It takes two shots to the hinge for it to fall forward, the side of the door falling directly onto the zombie's head, sending red spots of blood spraying onto our jeans.

I laugh, hardly able to believe that it actually worked, "Yes! Zombie kill of the week!"

Effy cocks an eyebrow, "That was all luck, but I'll give it to you."

"Finally, I haven't gotten kill of the week in like a month."

"Not my fault I'm better at this than you."

I walk to the zombie, glass crunching under my shoes, and pull the knife from its back with a disgusting squelching noise. Knives aren't very convenient for zombie-killing, but it never hurts to have one on you.

"No cigarettes, of course." I look up to find Effy behind the counter, scanning the empty shelves where the tobacco products are held. I grab a gas can and a couple maps of Greater London as I follow her back outside.

We examine the fuel pumps to make sure there's no chance of getting anything from them. The power is out and we have no idea how to get to the fuel without electricity. The hoses on the pumps are too thick to fit into a gas tank of a car, so they won't help us. I get a tight grip on the hose and stab the knife into it, but nothing comes out, the fuel stock must have been used up when the power was still on. We continue to scan the area for any kind of tube, ending up in the back of the building where we find a door.

Surprisingly the door opens when I turn the handle, I was expecting that we would have to bash it open somehow. I pull it open and am relieved to see that it's a supply room. It's mostly filled with extra stock of the beverages sold inside, but there's also equipment for cleaning and maintaining the grounds. Effy follows me inside, "Fucking perfect!" She crosses the room and picks up a hose from the floor, "It's too long, give me that knife." After a few minutes of sawing through the rubber, we finally manage to cut out a section out of it.

We return to the front of the station and find a car parked at one of the pumps that will become our victim. As I'm opening the gas tank I hear a car behind us and I instinctively reach to my back to get a grip on my gun as I turn to find the source. The car slows to a stop at the fork in the road where you can either come to the gas station or drive on to the food area. After a few seconds of decision, the car slowly turns onto our road and heads towards us. My grip tightens on the gun but then I release it when I see the occupants of the car and smile when I recognize Emily's red hair. Of course they would stop at the same fucking rest stop as us.

But as the car pulls towards the building I feel my smile vanish and I'm instantly suspicious. They were ahead of us on the road. In order for us to get here before them we would have had to pass them. Unless they stopped somewhere, but if they had already stopped earlier, why would they be stopping here? They've seen our supplies, what if they hid and waited for us to pass so they could follow us, then pretend to be nice and try to get more of our stuff? I guess that's what I get for being nice. I feel my whole body deflate, of course the only hot girl I meet in months is probably a conniving little bitch.

The car pulls to a stop in front of the entrance, only about ten feet from us. "Eff, they were ahead of us…" That's all it takes to get her on the same page as me, her eyes widen for a second and she nods in understanding. As suspicious as I am, I'm not going to accuse them of anything, I'd rather wait for them to show their intentions and prove me right.

They get out of the car at the same time, Katie walking into the building without a backwards glance while Emily leans against the car door, smiling at us. I spot Katie peering into the building cautiously and Effy saves her the trouble, "We've been in there already, it's clear." She turns around and nods her head in thanks before disappearing through the door.

I turn my attention back to Emily when she speaks, "Fancy seeing you here."

"What brings you here?" My tone is unfriendly and cold.

"Katie had to piss, she refuses to do it outside."

I resist the urge to laugh along with her at Katie's expense and hold my cold stare. Effy forces me to break eye contact by shoving the hose into my hands, "I'll let you do the honors."

I turn away from Emily and shove the hose into the tank, looking back to Effy, "So I just…suck?"

Effy smirks and nods, "Yep…hard."

I sigh as I put my mouth to the hose, partly because I know I'm about to get a mouthful of gas, but also because this feels extremely awkward with Emily watching on with an amused smile on her face. I suck the air out of the house and shove the other end into the can when the fuel hits my mouth. The taste is horrible, I almost vomit as I cough and spit to get the taste out of my mouth.

"That was horrible, you're doing it next time."

I get a grip on the hose to hold it in place as the liquid drains into the container and lean against the car. Emily just watches us, arms crossed over her chest with that adorable fucking smile still on her face. _Fuck! She's not adorable, she's a manipulator, don't fall for her charm. _My eyes study her face and run over the cut on her cheek, "What happened…to your face?"

My suspicions are heightened when she shuffles awkwardly on her feet and looks at the ground. "I um…I got punched."

"By who?"

She shrugs, "Some wanker." Probably some wanker who saw through your innocent front while you tried to fuck him over. I glance at Effy, who's studying Emily carefully, obviously trying to figure her out.

After a minute of silence she looks back to us, "Who's James Cook?"

"How do you—oh…" She drove by the sign we were writing on, that's how she knows the name. "He's a friend of ours, we're hoping he's still alive." If she saw his name that means she also saw our destination, which only gives them more opportunity to follow us.

She nods sadly, her voice sincere, "Good luck with that, I hope you find him."

"Thanks, so do we."

All of our eyes shoot to the door when it opens, Katie strolling back to the car, "Let's go."

"Give me a minute, I'm sick of being in the car."

Katie rolls her eyes as she gets in, "Hurry up."

Emily pulls something out of her pocket and my insides clench when I see that it's a pack of cigarettes. Her hand freezes in her pocket during her search for a lighter as she takes in her surroundings, probably realizing that a gas station isn't the best place to light up. She tries to push the pack back into her pocket but pauses.

I hadn't realized I was staring at the cigarettes with a desperate look on my face until her laughter brings my gaze back up to hers. She holds the pack up, "Do you want one?"

I can't even try to act like I'm not dying for one, "Actually…yes."

She opens the pack but then stops and looks back up at us, a challenging look in her eyes, "I have one condition…"

Great…here it comes, where she tries to trade cigarettes for food or something. "What is it?" My tone is even more biting than I intended it to be.

"Tell me your names."

The request catches me off guard and I can see Effy smiling from the corner of my eye. "I'm Effy."

"Naomi."

"Nice to meet you," She gives us a cheeky grin before turning and reaching into the backseat through the window. She tosses an unopened pack to me and I catch it awkwardly with both hands.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I have tons, and I don't smoke that much."

"Thanks…" I definitely wasn't expecting that.

"No problem, figure I owe you anyway, for the water and the whole not shooting me in the head thing." I've been trying my hardest not to be friendly with her, but her little half smile is so adorable that I can't stop myself from breaking into a grin.

But then Katie ruins our moment by leaning over into the passenger seat and yelling at Emily, "Hurry up!"

"Calm the fuck down!" Emily turns back to us, obviously annoyed, "I guess we're going. We're headed to London as well, maybe we'll see you around one day."

"Yeah…maybe." With a sad smile she gets into the car and they speed off right when the door closes. My heart falls as I watch them drive away. London is a big place, I doubt I ever will see her again. And even if I do, I still don't know if we can trust them. Even though they Emily was perfectly nice to us and didn't try to get anything out of us, I'm still wary of them. And even if I can trust her, I have to stop thinking about how beautiful she is, it's not like anything could ever happen between us. Not only for the fact that it's risky to throw that much trust at a stranger, but also because my luck isn't good enough for her to actually feel the same way.

"Do you think we can trust them?"

"I think they're harmless."

The sound of the fuel flowing into the container has stopped, I'm not sure how long it's been done. I take the hose out of the can and pick it up, walking back to our car as I consider the fact that Effy seems to trust them. "But why didn't we see them on the road?"

"They must have gotten off for some reason. And even if they were on the side of the road there are enough abandoned cars that could have blocked them from view."

I open the gas tank on our car and pour the newly acquired fuel into the tank. "I feel like they're fucking with us, just leading us on and waiting for the chance to fuck us over.

Effy laughed a little, "I think you're overreacting."

"We can't just be trusting random girls that come along and give us a pack of cigarettes. And did you see how she acted when I asked her about her face? She was definitely hiding something."

"Why are you so worried about them? They're gone, they didn't try to get anything out of us, and we probably won't see them again, so relax, yeah?"

Hearing the words out loud that I won't see her again crushes me even more. Why am I so upset about not knowing her? She's just a random girl that happens to be attractive, I need to get her out of my mind.

Once we get in the car and we're back on the road, I dig around the car looking for a lighter. I find one on the floor and rip the plastic off the little box. Just the feeling of a cigarette between my lips makes me feel better. The tiny flame appears from the lighter and I inhale deeply once it's lit. The content sigh that escapes my lips practically turns into a moan as I lean back against the chair and close my eyes, letting the smoke fill my lungs.

"Are you smoking the thing or having sex with it?"

"Don't be jealous that this is satisfying me more than you ever have."

I laugh harder at my own joke than Effy does, "Fuck off and give me one."

Two cigarettes later I put them away, wanting to make the pack last for a few days.

I force myself to stop thinking about Emily and my thoughts immediately drift to Cook and how the hell we're going to find him. "Where do we start?"

"Well the gallery his mum had her exhibition at was in the city, so I assume that's where his hotel was. I say our first step is to head to the city, find somewhere to stay, and start looking. We'll move outwards from there until we find him, and when we do we'll find a mansion in Kensington and do whatever the fuck we want."

Fear settles in my stomach. Neither of us have any idea what the city will be like. It could be completely trashed with not a soul alive, completely overtaken by zombies. As much as I can't imagine a zombie taking down Cook, the chances that we find him seem slim. I fall into an uneasy sleep for the last hour of the drive, my dreams haunted by images of a dead Cook and the beautiful girl I'll never see again.


	4. New Homes, Old Feelings

**Chapter 4 – New Homes, ****Old**** Feelings**

As we approach the end of our journey I find it hard to stop my feet from tapping nervously on the floor. I didn't expect it, but I'm getting steadily more anxious as we reach our destination. We're just outside of London and I'm not sure what to expect.

My heart falls when we enter the outskirts of the city and see the destruction. The houses and buildings visible off the side of the motorway are in ruins, some of them have smoke pouring from the smoldering rubble of what was once there.

"Holy shit Ems…"

"It's okay, it can't all be like this." Katie exits the motorway and drives further south, my stomach dropping more and more when we get to the Richmond area and the conditions still aren't improving. The city is quiet and dormant, even worse than in Bristol.

"Maybe we should go back…"

"No. It'll get better. Keep going." The tone of my voice doesn't give her much choice but to continue on, and it's not long before I'm proven right. When we cross the Thames and increase our distance from it, our surroundings slowly start to get better, eventually becoming almost normal, even signs of human life are visible. It's hard to keep a smug grin off my face and resist giving Katie an "I told you so" as we drive through the streets looking for shelter for the night.

It takes only an hour or so to find a fitting house. The first few we tried were either boarded up and impossible to enter or were a bloody mess within. But we found an expensive looking place in Lambeth and were inside exploring our new home as the sunset painted an orange glow on the walls.

Judging by the bunk beds and atrocious amount of pink in one of the two bedrooms, there were two young girls in this family. I walk around their room and find a picture on the small bedside table of the whole family at a zoo. One of the girls, the younger one by the looks of it, is on her father's shoulders, and the other is clinging tightly to her mother's hand with quite the scowl on her face. I smile as I notice the other picture on the table of the girls hugging each other, their cheeks pressed tightly together so they can smile at the camera.

Katie walks up behind me to see what I'm looking at. I rub a finger across the glass, pushing the dust away from their captured faces.

"They remind me of us."

She takes a second to study the photographs, "We were cuter."

"You're such an asshole sometimes," She really can be, but I still can't help but laugh with her.

That night while I'm staring at the ceiling trying to fall asleep, listening to Katie snore along beside me, I'm almost overcome with emotion. My mind floats to the girls that used to live here and swims in the possibilities of what could have happened to them. If they were still alive somewhere I'm sure their house wouldn't look so untouched, most houses are stripped of anything of personal value. But them being dead doesn't effect me much, sometimes I feel jealous of the ones that died early and quickly. The only thing that comes with this life is pain and heartache, if someone was able to escape that then there's not much reason to feel bad for them. Thinking about the family just reminds me of James and brings up the same question that's been on my mind all day: What the fuck are we supposed to do now?

.

* * *

.

The sun is beginning to set, we've been driving around looking for a place to stay all day today and last night. There are a lot more people here than in Bristol, both alive and undead. Some of the buildings we scoped out already had people living in them, which was oddly comforting, knowing that there are still people around. We were terrified when we first entered the city, seeing how destroyed everything seemed to be. But as we neared the inner city things started looking much better. I don't know what the hell happened in West London, I just hope similar chaos stays out of the rest of it.

Effy slows the car to a stop and I follow her gaze to the building we're in front of. I squint through the glass doors, which are surprisingly intact, trying to see if the place has power.

"Should we check it out?"

"Yeah, looks like the lights are on." Effy backs up and repositions the car half on the sidewalk, right in front of the doors. We walk cautiously into the building into a long, thin lobby. It's a fancy place, one side of the room lined with comfortable looking armchairs and a reception desk on the other side. I take a quick look behind the desk, but there's nothing of any value.

I press the button for the lifts just to see if they work, and surely enough there's a cheerful ding as the doors slide open. Unfortunately though it would be stupid to take them, we would be fucked if it broke down while we were in there. We take the stairs to the first floor and begin our search. We need a flat that isn't a bloodbath, has power and water, and hopefully has a set of keys for the door. The keys aren't completely necessary, since our main worry is locking ourselves in when we're there, but it's comforting knowing that we can lock up our things when we leave.

All of the first floor flats are securely locked, but the first door I try on the second floor opens.

"Got one…fucking hell, nevermind!"

Waiting for me to find him in the middle of the room was a man who had seen better days. Bits of his skull and brains were sprawled behind his body, drying into the carpet. The shotgun he used to kill himself was lying a few feet from him, bent open to expose the empty chamber, someone must have been by already to check for shells. Suicides were a common find, some people just weren't willing to live like this. I almost turn the handle of dead guy's neighbor's flat, but pause when I think I hear a voice from within. I decide not to linger at the door and listen for more, if there are people in there I don't want them to think I'm here to give them any trouble.

It's not until the eighth (and top) floor that we find a suitable place with a set of keys sitting peacefully on a small table inside of the door. At first I was hesitant about staying in a high-level flat, if one of us was injured it would not be fun to climb up all these stairs. But Effy changed my mind about it in the first building we searched yesterday, reasoning that the higher up we are, the less likely it was that someone would find us, and we could stash some emergency medical supplies in the lobby for a quick fix.

The flat is in good shape, no blood stains or signs of violence, and it looks fucking fancy, which is always a nice touch. The living room is absolutely giant and immaculately decorated. Effy walks down the hallway and disappears into what I assume is the bathroom as I lay on one of the couches, pleasantly surprised at how comfy it is. I hear water running and Effy's voice echo out of the bathroom.

"Water!"

I want to stay on that couch all fucking day but force myself out of it to explore the rest of our new potential home, wandering into the kitchen. The black countertops and white walls give it a very modern touch. It's nearly spotless save for a few dishes left in the sink. There's quite a bit of food in the cupboards, and I smile when I open the last cupboard to find the alcohol stash.

"Vodka!"

"Thank fuck for that!"

I follow the sound of her voice down the hallway and explore the three bedrooms. The first one is huge, complete with a second bathroom. It has such a warm and cozy feeling in it, despite the expensive decorations. There are paintings on the walls and family pictures on every surface. The second room is much smaller, band and movie posters adorn the walls rather than paintings, looks like it was a teenage boy's room. I make a mental note to search it later for drugs. The third room was probably a spare room, judging from the lack of personality and personal belongings in it. But it did have a balcony, where I found Effy leaning against the railing and smoking.

She hands me a cigarette as soon as I step through the open glass sliding door. I light up and look down into the street, spotting our car right below us.

I take a deep drag before asking, "So….home sweet home?"

"I think it'll work. But we have an important decision to make."

"What's that?"

"Do we want the room with the balcony or the room with the bathroom?"

I laugh lightly, "I vote for the most comfortable bed." With that I push myself from the railing and back into the room to throw myself onto the bed. Effy is a few steps behind me and laughs as she jumps on. We get under the blankets, cigarettes dangling from our mouths, turning into random positions to get a good feel for it, before switching to the other room to run the same test. The middle room is automatically disqualified due to the serious downgrade in bed size.

I sit with my back against the headboard, "It's tough, but I think I like the other one better."

"Me too."

We sit in silence for a minute, enjoying our smokes, and then Effy pops up, "Think we can get onto the roof?"

A smile creeps onto my face before I jump out of bed and run out of the flat with Effy tight on my heels. Our stifled laughter reminds me of children running through the quiet halls of a library, I almost feel like a real adult is going to pop around the corner to shush us. Then again I definitely wasn't running around with a cigarette in one hand and a semi-automatic in the other when I was as kid.

The view from the roof is infinitely better than the balcony. We walk around and take in the surroundings until we settle on one side and lean against the low wall. The golden light of the sunset makes the city look like it's glowing.

It's silent for a few minutes as we take in the scene, "I haven't been to London in years, I forgot how nice it can be."

I on the other hand had just been to London recently for an open day at Goldsmith's. We were only a few months away from being done with college and then just a few more months I would have been off to university. I had been so excited to start a new life, little did I know just what exactly that entailed.

"It's so quiet. I thought it would be weird to see it so empty, but it's peaceful from up here."

Effy nods her agreement as we stare out into the still city. I used to love this place for the big city feel of it, even though most of the people roaming the streets were probably tossers, it still made for a nice atmosphere. But now it's mostly empty, and it's just as wonderful.

In the distance the very top of the London Eye is visible through the gaps in the buildings. It immediately reminds me of my mum and being in London for the first time with her when I was six. I was absolutely amazed by it, and was pissed when she wouldn't let me go on it because the lines would be horrible. I pouted for the next hour but then my world was righted again when she bought me an ice cream, and I was perfectly content to walk along the Thames with my mother and my new treat.

I blink and realize that my eyes are watering, a single tear drops down my cheek. Thinking of my mum brings up the image of her dead body lying in bed as clear as though I was staring at it on a movie screen. She died a week after the takeover when Effy was staying with us in our house. I went into her room one morning, intending to wake her up since it was past noon. I thought she was asleep but one touch to her cold, stiff shoulder revealed the truth.

I wanted to bury her, but after hours of crying while trying to dig a deep enough hole, Effy dragged me back inside and let me cry into her shirt until I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was in Effy's bedroom. I never asked how I got there, I assumed I was half asleep while she got me into the car and to her house. Looking back now on her death, it's a relief that she died peacefully in her sleep. I don't know what I would have done if I saw her violently killed, or worse, turned into one of them. The stress and sadness of it all must have been too much for her.

I hate when I let myself get emotional like this. Dwelling on the past won't make the present change. I wish I was stronger, like Effy. When her mum was killed she cried for two days straight, but since then, she hasn't shed a single tear.

I take one last shaky drag of my cigarette and watch it drop until it bursts into a tiny pile of embers on the sidewalk.

"What are you thinking about?"

"My mum."

My voice is surprisingly strong, but Effy still entwines our fingers, resting them on the low wall and scooting next to me so our shoulders are flush.

"Are you still sad that she loved me more than you?"

The tears come harder but now I'm not sure if they're from crying or laughing, "You know I'm still pissed at you for outing me to her, I wanted to tell her."

"Me and Gina had been talking about how gay you were for almost a year, I had to tell her the news as soon as it was confirmed, you would have taken ages to tell her."

I told Effy a couple years ago when we were hanging out in a park one day after classes. I randomly blurted out "I think I'm gay" while we were laying in the grass smoking a joint. The words hung in the air above us, it was agonizing waiting for her response. But when I turned to her I saw her smiling, and she simply said, "I _know_ you're gay." Later in the day right when we went our separate ways to our respective houses she called my mum and told her. I was greeted with a hug from my mother and her exclamations of how excited she was for me that I'd finally realized it.

"You're right I would've waited, I knew how annoying and excited she would be."

"And you would have loved it."

My smile grows wider, "Yeah…I would have."

We slip into silence, watching the sun creep down the sky as the tears dry on my face. "We should probably move our stuff before it gets dark and find somewhere to hide the car." She nods and we leave the roof, heading back down to our car to collect our supplies.

.

.

.

On our third day in the new home, we finally get out for a full day of exploring the city. We mostly drove around, familiarizing ourselves with the streets and keeping an eye out for people to get an idea of how many survivors there were, and of course leaving an occasional message for Cook. We retreated home when night began to fall.

Right when we got home Effy busted into the vodka and started going through a photo album she found in the main bedroom. She'll occasionally show me an interesting picture of the family as I lay on the couch with a book and try to distract myself from my thoughts. The family was adorable, the parents were always happy looking, even in the more recent pictures when their son was obviously getting into his angsty teenage stage, giving annoyed looks to the camera as the parents smiled next to him.

When I start dozing off on the couch I fold the corner of the page down and stretch as I get up.

"I'm going to bed, you coming?"

"Not yet, be there soon."

"Goodnight."

"Night..."

I walk to the bedroom and change into shorts and a t-shirt. I used to sleep naked, but it only took one middle-of-the-night zombie attack to start wearing clothes to bed. Killing a zombie while naked is by far the strangest and most disgusting thing I'll ever do.

I thought I would fall asleep right away but I became too distracted, tossing and turning in the bed trying to get comfortable. After a while I pick my book back up and try to read but it's useless, I throw it and it flutters like a drunk bird across the room, hitting the wall with a thunk and falling to the ground.

_Fuck. _There's only one word that I can easily concentrate on: _Emily._ Stupid Emily and her stupid pretty face and her stupid fucking sexy grin. What is wrong with me? I can't see an attractive girl without thinking about her all the time? What a perv I am these days. I look to the empty bed next to me and wish she was here to fill it, so I can find out what it's like to touch her, to take her. It's not even just about sex, I find myself constantly thinking where she is, what she's doing, where she's from. But the most important thought on my brain is whether she's thinking of me, or if she has thought of me at all since we met. The terrifying answer to that question that keeps floating through my mind is a very probable "no, not at all you stupid tosser."

Even though I feel like a total perv every time I think about her like this, I let myself get lost in it. Thinking of how amazing it would feel to have her on top of me right now, or even better, feeling her under me. I can practically feel her straddling me, pulling the collar of my shirt down to expose more skin to kiss. I squirm on the bed, getting myself worked up, but when I move I discover that there actually _is_ someone on top of me.

My eyes pop open to find Effy doing exactly what I was just thinking about Emily doing in my half-asleep state. She must have sensed that I woke up from my slight slumber because she pushed herself up, hovering above me, blue eyes staring into my own, silently asking for permission. We've never done this unless we're both drunk, but right now I am stone cold sober. I think about it for a moment, and decide fuck it, why not? Hopefully it will take my mind off of Emily for a bit.

I give off the tiniest of shrugs as I grab her neck and pull her back into me, trying to kiss Emily out of my brain. Out of all the people I've had sex with, sex with Effy is easily the most impersonal. Minimal clothes are removed and we don't waste any time getting to business. I flip us over without breaking the kiss but stop when a drunken giggle escapes her lips.

I pull away and stare down at her, offended, "What's so funny?"

"You're such a top."

I roll my eyes before continuing about my business. I kiss her neck and run my hands along her torso under her shirt before eventually moving lower and unbuttoning her jeans, removing them along with her knickers in one go. Her legs wrap around my waist as I climb back up her, sliding my hand between us.

As I push my fingers deeper inside of her, I suddenly feel very stupid. I wake up from what would have definitely turned into a sex dream about Emily and I think it's a good idea to have a shag to get her off my mind? What the fuck was I thinking? Emily is all that I can think about the entire time. When Effy comes, I wish it was Emily and her beautiful voice eliciting moans beneath me. When I come, it's because of images of Emily flooding my mind.

I lay next to Effy, both of us catching our breath. Rather than the usual post-sex daze, I feel like shit right now. I don't feel bad for Effy for thinking of someone else while I fucked her, I know I'm not the one on her mind. I just feel empty inside, filled only with a settling sense of loneliness. The typical feeling of loneliness that has plagued me due to being one of the few survivors left in the world is nothing compared to the crushing feeling overwhelming me right now. I need someone in my life, someone that I actually have feelings for, not just someone to fuck, and I'll never have that.

I get up and slip away to the bathroom, putting my shorts back on as I go. I sit on the edge of the tub and stare at the wall, trying to relax myself, not quite wanting to face Effy because she'll know something is wrong. _Nothing has changed_. I'm in the same situation I was in before I looked down the barrel of a gun and saw Emily's brown eyes for the first time. I was dealing just fine with our situation before then, and I can now.

When I leave the bathroom I stick to my own side of the bed. We never cuddle after we've had sex, it feels oddly intimate, and it's a little bit too much. I took a while in the bathroom, so I figured Effy had already drifted off to sleep. But right when I got myself comfy I hear the sheets rustling and I open my eyes to her rolling over towards me.

"Naomi?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you lying?"

"No." Even in the soft light from the moon, I can see her eyebrows raise, "Maybe..."

"Come here." She opens her arms and beckons me towards her. I sigh loudly but cuddle into her anyway, nuzzling my face into her chest and wrapping my arms around her, "You're lonely, aren't you?"

"No, I have you."

"Yes, you do, and you always will. But that's not all you want…not all you need."

"You're all I need."

Effy chuckles, "Flattering, but I know that's not true."

"I don't know what's happened, I was doing just fine coping before."

There's silence for a minute, "Could it be because of Emily?"

My defense comes rushing out of my mouth, almost too fast to actually make out the words, "No! Some girl I met twice can't change my mood, that's ridiculous. She's just some girl, who cares if she's beautiful. Are…are you laughing?" I pull away from her to look into her face, "Why are you laughing?!"

"The lady doth protests too much, methinks. You've been thinking about her since we last saw her haven't you?"

"I've never heard you quote Shakespeare before."

"Shut up and answer the question."

"Maybe I have."

"What are we going to do about it?"

"What? We're not going to do anything about it."

"Why not?"

I move my head to the side so my shadow is no longer on her face, the moonlight revealing the sincere curiosity in her face, "Because it's too risky! We can't trust them, we don't know who the fuck they are, we have to stick together, not just let strangers into our lives." I'm not exactly sure why, but I decide to leave out my biggest reason, the part where I know she doesn't feel the same.

"Just because we start interacting with other people doesn't mean we won't be sticking together. We could get to know them if we ever see them again."

"No Eff it's too risky!" I feel myself getting even angrier, I have to stop this conversation before it turns into an argument. I roll over with a final huff, "I don't want to talk about it anymore. Go to sleep."

Effy knows not to push the issue, and I force my eyes shut through my anger and eventually drift off to sleep.


	5. The Chase

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The can of spray paint clanks as I shake it before writing the date at the end of the message I'm painting on the brick. When I finish I turn back towards the car, but stop and return to my writing with a smile on my face. I paint over the 'Y' in Effy and write 'STER' after it, and add 'KINS' to the end of my name. After finishing my new additions I make my way back to the driver's seat, my shoes slipping against the damp pavement.

"Nice touch."

"I thought so. What's that street sign say?"

"Salisbury."

I write 'Fleet and Salisbury' on the little notepad on the dashboard. We keep track of where we've tagged so we know what we've covered so far. I hit the gas and continue down the road, aimlessly driving until we find something of interest. That's mainly what our days have consisted of since we got here, driving around until we decide to write a message or explore a building for anything we can steal. During the drive to London I was worried about this new chapter of our lives, assuming it would be stressful and monotonous, but it's not what I thought. Turns out driving around an empty London with your best mate isn't too bad, it's actually quite fun a lot of the time.

"We should find more fags, how many do we—fuck!" I turned away from the road for a second and looked back to find a person standing in the middle of the intersection. Instinctively, I jerk the wheel, not knowing if it's human or undead. "Shit!" I slam the brakes but it's too late and the ground is too slick, the tires slip on the road and we crash into the corner of a stone building.

"Windows!" I don't question Effy's order and my finger flies to the button to roll the window up, but once again, I'm too late. Before I can fully grasp what has happened, a cold, dead hand squeezes its way into the car, stopping the advance of the window. The hand claws at my face as she tries to grab me and pull me into her. The smell of decaying flesh is overwhelming, with my free hand I reach wildly for my gun and aim for the head. But when I pull the trigger all I hear is the deafening click of an empty chamber.

There's a split second that I think I'm done for, before Effy reaches over and grabs my neck, pulling me from the zombie's grasp and out of the way of her shot. Her hand is warm, almost hot compared to the dead hand that was clawing at my face seconds before. I cover my head with my arms as she puts two bullets into its face and the beast stills, its arm stuck in the crack of the window. I quickly roll it down so the body is released and then fully close the window.

My breathing is coming in gasps as I look around for a clip to reload, but then I stop breathing all together when I realize that the two mags I was supposed to bring aren't here…I left them at home in the kitchen. I put them down when I got a glass of water before we left and never picked them back up. I haven't fucked up like this in a long time and would beat myself up right now if there was time, but it's okay, we can just go back to the flat and retrieve them.

I turn the key to start the car back up but am only welcomed with the stuttering of the engine, "Come on! Start...Fuck!" I hit the steering wheel with my free hand, trying to beat the car into working, but am eventually forced to give up.

"Piece of fucking shit!" There's silence for a few seconds as the enormity of our situation falls on me. We're a about a mile from home, with limited ammunition, and now no car. "How many bullets do you have left?"

"Two if I've counted correctly, possibly three. Why?" I can't bring myself to admit my mistake, "Naomi…" She raises her gun a little, "Is this all we have?"

I nod my head slowly, "I'm sorry Eff…"

"It's fine…we'll be fine, it's not that far." Her voice is calm but I can tell she is panicking as much as I am on the inside. I doubt we'll get back to the flat with no problems, but then again we have two rounds left, we should be fine. "We'll just…walk home. We'll make it. Let's go."

Getting my door open is a struggle, I have to push the zombie body out of the way and awkwardly step over it. I put my empty gun in the back waistband of my pants and lean back into the car, looking for anything small and important that I can carry home in my pockets.

Rushing footsteps from behind me tear my attention from the search. Out of instinct I pull the gun from my pants and turn to aim at the on-comers, but my arms fall when I remember that the gun isn't loaded and the runners are obviously human anyway. A man and a woman are running down Fleet Street towards us. The world seems to move in slow motion as I count the zombies rounding the corner only a block away, there's at least six of them

The man spots us and yells, "RUN!"

It's not so much his words that break me from my stand still, it's the sound of gunshots as Effy aims over the hood of the car at them. Two shots ring out and before I turn I see a spray of blood and one of our targets falling to the ground.

"Naomi! This way!" The man and woman continue down Fleet Street as we sprint down the side street, hoping to split up the pack and have less of a problem on our hands.

From the corner of my eye I see Effy look over her shoulder for another body count, "Three left."

_Fuck_. That's a lot to deal with without any weapons. But running from zombies is an art form, one that can be perfected, and I like to think it has been close to perfected by me. All that you need to do is follow my set of rules and you should be fine, as long as you have a bit of speed and stamina.

As we run, my eyes are quickly scanning the wet ground for anything that can be used as a weapon. We pass a couple outdoor cafés along the road, but the chairs look flimsy and wouldn't do much good in a beat down, especially against three of them. The road intersects another on the bank of the Thames and we turn left along it, taking the lower route and passing beneath an underpass.

_Weapon…weapon…weapon._ There's a fallen street sign that I consider implementing for a second but end up passing it by, it would be too heavy to use effectively. The road forks ahead of us but the choice of route is clear. Turn right and we stay on open road, left heads right into a tunnel (Rule #8: Avoid tunnels dumbass, you never know what's inside or at the other end). We run past the tunnel and onto the road, which gains elevation and then turns off to the left between the buildings.

I scan my surroundings again, my mind racing with ideas to pick them off (Rule #2: Observe carefully, anything can be used to your advantage). At the curve of the road there are a few low rooftops and a staircase coming off the sidewalk heading down below the road. The buildings are low enough to possibly find a way up, but that would be a violation of the most important rule (Rule #1: Only go up if you know _exactly _how you're going to get down. Getting cornered on a rooftop is a big mistake.)

_Wait, stairs…stairs to what? _I peer over the side of the road as I run, spotting a walkway below us that runs right along the river…_perfect_.

"We have to jump…"

"What? Where?"

This will take timing, too early and my plan probably won't work, too late and we'll definitely hurt ourselves on the fall. The pathway isn't that far below us, we might make the jump even at the highest point of the road, but that's risky (Rule #3: Be creative, but don't be stupid, no one likes a show-off).

"Over the edge…NOW!" I plant a foot on the guard rail and launch myself over the small fence to the concrete below (Rule #5: Learn how to fall, you'll be doing it a lot).

I hit the cement and catch my balance, working through the pain in my legs from the collision. I listen for the zombies to make the same jump and look back just in time_._ They may be strong and fast, but they're also clumsy and stupid, rushing into every movement. Sure enough, as I look over my shoulder I see one of them fuck up the jump. Its foot catches between the bars of the rail, but it's momentum is too much. I watch just long enough to see the leg bend the wrong way at the knee so far that it's ripped clean from the body. The bottom half of the leg stays locked in the rail as the body plummets to the ground, I hear the squelch when it hits the pavement as I focus back on the road ahead of me.

One down, two to go, assuming we don't come across anymore before we shake these two. We need to start making our way towards the flat, but I have no idea what the quickest way to get there is. We turn left when we reach the Millennium Bridge and run past the mouth of it back towards the road.

I hear Effy pant, "Cathedral." I glance up and see St Paul's Cathedral through the alley, just a block away. At the last second before we cross the road and head into the alley, I see a car barreling down the road in the distance towards us. But my attention is torn from the car when I trip on a stair and I have to throw an arm out to catch myself. _Focus you fucking idiot_. As I struggle to get up I try to picture the map and the roads around St. Paul's. The flat is almost directly north of the building, but I don't know the streets that will get us there the quickest.

We take the last set of steps towards the churchyard and stop for just a second to decide which direction to go. But turns out the decision is unnecessary. The sound of squealing brakes causes me to turn towards the road we just came from. The car that caught my attention comes to a messy stop and the doors immediately fly open. For a second I lose all focus on the zombies halfway between us and the car, and am immediately lost in the fact that it's Emily getting out of the car and running towards the zombies and shooting. Emily is saving me.

It takes several shots but eventually they fall dead and Emily and Katie hurry up the steps towards us.

"Are you two okay?"

I nod my head as I try to catch my breath, "You…saved us." _Jesus Christ, that's the best you can come up with?_

She smiles a little and almost laughs at my keen observation, "Yeah…"

"Why…why are you here? I mean…how'd you find us?"

"We were on the bridge you ran under. Nice jump by the way, smart move."

I take another deep breath and can almost breathe normally again. How the hell do you thank someone for saving your life? Words just didn't seem like enough at the moment, but I know I have to say something.

"Um…thanks, for everything."

"No problem. Do you…do you need a ride somewhere?" She gestures backwards towards their car.

We could use a ride back to the car and the flat. But I hesitate in accepting, I'm not used to people being so generous, and they've already done so much for us.

Effy beats me to responding, "That'd be great, thanks. Where are you two staying?"

Why the fuck does she need to know that? The twins seem to share my suspicion and we all look at her, confused, "Actually...nowhere really. We got attacked a few nights ago and they fucked up the house we were in. We haven't settled down again yet."

"You should stay with us."

I turn away from the twins and throw my arms out, "What?!" She wants to bring them to our home? Without even consulting me first? Not only can we not trust them, but she's bringing the girl I can't stop thinking about and can never have into my fucking home?

She looks at me and speaks pointedly, almost condescendingly, "They just saved our lives Naomi, I think the least we can do is offer them a place to stay."

I grab her arm and pull her away from them, far enough so they can't hear us.

"What the _fuck_ are you thinking? We can't just bring them to our flat!"

"Naomi…we have no reason not to trust them. They haven't done anything to us. Think about how easy it would have been for them to attack us when we first met, or especially at the service station. But they didn't, and now they just saved us. Take a fucking chance for once."

"When they rob us blind and fuck us over, it's on you." I didn't want to bring up the fact that she was throwing my crush into my life, I knew she'd have a cheeky response waiting for me. I turn back towards Emily and Katie, if I'm going to let them into our home, I better get some fucking answers first.

.

* * *

.

Naomi pulls Effy away from us and they start arguing quietly with each other.

I nudge Katie's arm, "Should we go with them?"

Katie scrunches her eyes as she watches them argue and sighs, "I really want to say no. Especially because Blondie is being such a cunt. But I also _really_ want a shower, so I say yes." I nod nonchalantly to hide my excitement, but the truth is I want to hug her for saying yes. Even though she is right, Naomi isn't exactly being friendly, she's also been extremely nice to us in the past and I wouldn't mind getting to know her. "But if Bitch 1 or Bitch 2 make one wrong move, we're leaving, yeah?"

"They have names Katie."

She rolls her eyes, "If _Naomi and Effy_ make one wrong move, we're gone."

"Deal." I smile at the thought of spending time with Naomi, but when I see Naomi marching towards us, looking like she's about to give me the verbal abusing of a lifetime, I'm suddenly not as excited.

"How did we get to the service station before you two? What were you doing?" Her voice is harsh, she's practically barking at us. The question throws me off a bit, I thought they would have seen us when they drove by, but then again there were a lot of cars on the road so we could have been hard to spot.

"We were siphoning gas on the side of the road, you drove right by us. We were a bit hidden though, I guess you missed us?"

Naomi studies me for a minute, and apparently is satisfied with my answer. "What about your face? Who hit you and why?"

Right when she asks the question Katie gets up into her face, "That's none of your fucking business!"

"Katie, calm down." I grab her arm and pull her away from Naomi before they start brawling or something.

"You don't have to tell her anything Ems."

"I know I don't, it's fine." I turn to Naomi and look directly into her eyes as I answer her question, "I was attacked in a store. A man tried to rape me, but all he managed to do was beat me up a bit before Katie saved me."

The anger vanishes from Naomi's face in an instant and her eyes fall to the ground, "Oh…"

Effy bumps Naomi's shoulder as she steps forward, "Satisfied?" She stands in front of her friend, blocking her from view and addressing us. "Please let us repay you, at least for one night."

Katie nods, "You're on. As long as she's not a cunt all night."

Naomi's face remains stoic, but Effy smirks, "Lovely. Our car is just a few blocks away, can we stop there first? It broke down but we left some stuff in it."

"Yeah, of course."

It takes a bit to move all of our shit around in the backseat, but we mange to make room for them. As Effy directs me back to their vehicle and then to the flat I sneak glances at Naomi in the rearview mirror. She's staring blankly out the window, she no longer looks sad at least, but I can't tell what she's feeling, maybe annoyed, maybe pissed. My insides twist uncomfortably at the thought that I'm making her look like that. Why does she have such a problem with us?

.

.

.

As soon as we walk through the door of their flat, Naomi gives us a cold, "Excuse us for just a minute." And once again pulls Effy away from us down the hallway and into the back of the flat. A door slams and muffled yelling can be heard through the walls.

This is sufficiently awkward. I've seen the good in Naomi, but if she really doesn't want me here this badly, is it worth getting to know her?

"Should we just leave?"

Katie scoffs, "I said I wanted a shower and I'm not leaving until I get one."

I laugh lightly and start examining the room. I run a finger along the spines of the books on the shelves, glancing at the titles for anything I recognize. My attention is diverted from the books when I see two maps pinned to the wall at the far end of the room. I get closer and see that one is of Greater London, and the second slightly smaller map is of Central London.

The smaller map has a star where their flat is located, and little red C's scattered around it. The Greater London map has red fire drawn along the M4 where the city was in ruins. It continued just a bit past where me and Katie exited to drive farther south, if we had just stuck on the motorway for a little longer we would have been out of the destruction, and probably would have found a different place to stay and wouldn't have been nearly killed a few nights ago.

The door of the room Naomi and Effy are in opens and they both come marching down the hallway. Naomi stops and looks between me and Katie.

"We can go if you don't want us here…"

"No. It's fine. You should stay." I almost laugh at how her words and tone contradict each other, it's obvious she's still not happy about our presence. Naomi storms off into the kitchen and out of sight.

Effy walks over to me at the maps and picks up a red permanent marker from the table next to the couch. She pauses in front of them, pops off the cap and adds two more C's to the tangle of streets, one on Fleet Street and another a few blocks north.

"What do the C's mean?"

"Stands for Cook."

"Your friend?"

"Yes. We keep track of where we've written something for him."

I nod as my eyes travel back to the Greater London map. "We went farther south when we got here..." I trace a finger along our path, "This is all destroyed too, until just past the Thames…" my finger stops at a small square that says A316 and circles the small area, "Around here."

She raises the marker to the paper again and draws more flames along the path I traced. She stares at her work for a good minute and then speaks out of nowhere, "Don't worry about Naomi, she'll come round," She turns her head to me and gives me a small smile, "Trust me."

"We can leave if she doesn't want us here."

"You're staying, she's fine." She abruptly turns and walks away from us, motioning for me and Katie to follow, "Come on, I'll show you around." Effy shows us the kitchen and the bathroom and then ushers us further down the hall where there are three more rooms, I assume bedrooms. "Me and Naomi are in the far bedroom. You can take one or both of the other two, this one has a bathroom that you're welcome to take over."

"Thanks Effy."

"No problem, I'll let you get settled."

Katie heads into the bedroom as Effy walks away and Naomi passes by me towards her room without even a glance at me. Feeling awfully rejected I walk into the bedroom and set my bag down on the floor before joining Katie on the bed.

"This is actually pretty nice. This bed is gonna be heaven compared to sleeping in the car." She hops up and starts rifling through the bag she packed, pulling out a towel and shower essentials, "Shower time bitch."

"Have fun." It's much more strange sitting in here alone. How long are we supposed to stay here?

Naomi walks by the door and stops when she spots me sitting on the bed, "Tea?"

"Please."

"Think Katie will want some too?"

"Probably."

I can't help but smile after she nods slightly and walks away. I've never seen someone be so unfriendly but hospitable at the same time. I lay back on the bed and feel the need to convince myself that this is a good idea. I wanted this, to find more people, to stick together. But it would be so easy to become attached to these two, especially Naomi. I think back to when I saw them running along the river and how terrifying it was.

Katie and me were enjoying the afternoon on the bridge, tossing rocks into the Thames, discussing where we want to live. It's been raining the past few days so we were glad to have a break from it and hoping that the sun would come out. I was sitting on the side, my legs dangling over the water when a streak of blonde appeared in my peripheral vision. The air left my body and I sat there, frozen with worry, as I watched them jump from the road until Katie's voice jerked me from my fear.

"Holy shit...that's Smiles and Blondie."

"Come on." I swung my legs back onto the ground and was in the car within two seconds. I was surprised when Katie was right behind me without a word of disagreement. Apparently I wasn't the only one feeling a bit of a connection with these two. When I saw them run across the road ahead of us, I finally felt like I could breathe again, I knew they'd be safe, I knew we could help them.

But what if it's too much? Getting attached means more people to worry about, more people to lose. It's possible that Naomi really is just a bitch, and it will be easy to up and leave after a day or two. I can't decide which situation would be better…meeting a bitch that I can easily walk away from, or meeting someone that I feel a connection with and have to worry about her safety. I have the sinking feeling that the best situation would have been to just turn down their offer all together and not have to deal with this. _Fuck._


	6. High Times

**This chapter has two POV switches, which is annoying, sorry about that. It goes Emily to Naomi back to Emily, not sure why I did that but I wasn't about to rewrite the whole thing. Sorry about the delay in this as well, I've had me a bad month, things are getting back to normal though so hopefully I'll start writing more again. Thanks as always for the reviews.**

**Chapter 6 – High Times**

I unpack a few things into our new room, putting our guns on the side table by the bed and folding up some of our clothes we brought in. Since we'll be here for at least a day or two we might as well make ourselves more at home. After a quick perusing of the room's contents I decide to venture back out to the living room, remembering I have tea waiting for me. I quickly realize I should have waited for Katie to finish her shower, her presence is so constant in my life that I feel extremely lonely going out to face these two on my own.

Effy is sitting at the table, quietly sipping her tea with her feet propped up on the tabletop. When she hears me approach her legs swing off the table so she can properly face me.

I gesture at the two cups on the table, "One of these for me?"

She nods and motions for me to join her. I take a seat across from her and try to avoid her piercing gaze as I sip my tea. I haven't had such a civilized sit down with a stranger in months. Being invited over for tea with people you barely know is hardly a common occurrence these days. But here I am sitting across from a stranger, sipping tea she made me, and I'm quickly discovering that my small talk is a bit rusty.

"Soo…zombies…pretty crazy…" Okay maybe more than a bit rusty.

Before Effy can respond to my feeble attempt at conversation the bedroom door opens and a freshly showered Katie emerges, toweling her hair as she walks down the hallway. Thank God for Katie Fitch, the girl is never speechless.

Effy watches her as she takes her seat and drink without hesitation, "Feeling better?"

"Much, hadn't had one of those in a while."

Effy leans back in her chair and looks between us for a minute. There's nothing intimidating or judging about her stare, she seems to simply be observing us.

"Twins, ey?"

"Good call."

I shoot Katie a look for being so crass, but one glance at Effy tells me that it's unnecessary. She took no offense from Katie's harshness, just sat there smirking away as usual, she seems to find Katie extremely amusing. Not that I can blame her, Katie is pretty amusing most of the time, like a bitchy little puppy wearing leopard print. Sure it will piss you off when it chews up your shoes, but you always end up forgiving it.

"You two from Bristol or were you just in the area?"

"We're from there."

"Yeah? Obviously you didn't go to Roundview with us, we'd probably recognize you."

"You're from Bristol too?"

"Yep."

"Interesting. So you and Blondie, you're old friends?"

"Don't call me that." My head swings around towards Naomi's voice. I didn't even know she was in the room, but sure enough she had snuck in and is leaning against the wall behind us, quietly observing our conversation. As quickly as I notice her presence it's gone again as she storms off down the hall.

Katie throws her hands in the air, "Jesus! What did we do now?"

Effy curses under her breath, "That's what our friend Cook called her, it was kind of their thing. She's just being a sensitive twat though, I'm sorry. She's mad at me and taking it out on you, just give her time, she'll be fine."

"She better be..."

"To answer your question though, yes, we're good friends, met in primary."

"Best mates…cute."

Effy smiles, "Why London?"

Katie nods her head towards me, "This one wanted to get out of Bristol, into a bigger city hoping for more people." I really wish she hadn't added that last part. I don't want them to feel pressured to keep us around if they don't want to.

Effy focuses her studying gaze back on me, "Wanting to be around people…that's rare these days."

I nod slowly, "I know, everyone is so cautious of other people but most of us have no reason to be. I mean of course there are assholes you have to watch out for, but most of us just want to survive and try to get back to normal, so why avoid each other so much?"

"Assholes like tiny little twins who try to steal from you when you're taking a piss on the side of the motorway?"

Both me and Katie crack a smile, "Exactly like them."

The three of us chat about our past lives for a while, talking about our favorite places back in Bristol and a little bit about what our lives were like. Effy had a sort of mystery around her the first two times we met, but that was quickly fading to reveal an almost normal girl, someone we may have been friends with if we had met previously. She doesn't say much, but when she does her words actually have meaning, unlike a lot of people of our age.

The entire time we sat there, for nearly an hour, Naomi never emerged from her room. I really want to take Effy's word and believe that she's mad at her and not us, but it's proving to be difficult, especially when the girl appears to not even want to talk to us. I can't help but feel like she doesn't want us here at all, and it makes this situation infinitely more uncomfortable. We'll have to leave tomorrow if this keeps up, I'm not about to stay in someone's place that is so unhappy about us being here, even if the anger is misdirected or not.

.

* * *

.

"Dont call me that." I storm off down the hall towards our room, immediately regretting that I got so mad. Maybe I overreacted a little, but she doesn't get to call me that, Cook calls me that. Who the fuck does she think she is just throwing a nickname on me?

I walk through our room onto the balcony and sit against the wall in a huff. It's raining lightly, which is fitting, the weather seems to be matching my mood these last few days, managing to exaggerate the feeling of loneliness that has been holding me captive. I pull my knees up to my chin and rest my head on them. I could really use a fucking cigarette right now. I know Emily has some, but I'm not about to ask her after how I've been acting. When did life get so much more stressful? A sigh escapes me since I know exactly what the answer to that is: right when Effy and me saw those two sneaking around our car.

It's so much more peaceful out here than it is inside. Even the occasional yell, crash, or gunshot in the distance is better than being in there surrounded by Emily. I stay in the same spot so long I don't know how much time has passed, until the rain soaks through my clothes and the chilliness forces me back inside. I take my shirt and shorts off, not bothering to put new ones on before getting into bed. It's still light out, but I don't feel like doing anything but lay here alone in my bed.

I could go out and apologize, scratch that, I _should_ go out and apologize, but I can't bring myself to. I wouldn't even know what to say to them, I'll just figure something out tomorrow.

It's hard to believe that this is even happening. Emily will be sleeping down the hall from me tonight. The girl I can't get out of mind has somehow wormed her way into my life. Instead of falling asleep in wonder tonight, thinking about where she is, what she's doing, or what she's thinking, I'll know exactly where she is. I have the power to find out what she's doing, even the power to find out what's on her mind if I dared to ask. As much as I thought I wanted this, wanted her here, this newfound power is terrifying, much more so than my previous ignorance.

I haven't had to deal with this in a long time. Being faced with someone you may have feelings for and having to throw yourself out there, admitting to it and hoping they feel the same. I've killed a countless number of zombies, but Emily scares me more than they ever have. The chance to have someone special in my life is here, Effy has made sure of that, but I don't have the balls to do anything about it. Now that I have her here, what the fuck am I supposed to do with her?

.

I must have dozed off because I jerk awake when Effy opens the door. It's dark outside now and I look at Effy, standing in the middle of the room. She doesn't say anything, just watches me for a few seconds, probably trying to judge what kind of mood I'm in. I roll over, putting my back to her. She sighs and busies about the room for a minute, shedding some clothes before hopping into bed next to me. I scoot closer to the edge as she climbs in to put the maximum amount of space between us.

"Still mad at me then?" Of course I'm still mad at her. She's dangling the girl I have a crush on right in front of my face, forcing me to deal with her. But mostly I'm mad at her for making me mad at myself, making me remember that I don't have the balls to go after what I want. I decide not to answer her, instead I wrap the blanket tighter around myself, creating a barrier between us.

"Silent treatment…creative." The sheets ruffle as she gets more comfortable, "They told me they came to London because they wanted to be around more people. But you're right, they're probably liars who are going to murder us in our sleep tonight. It's been nice knowing you, shame we have to die when you're pissed at me."

I have to bite my tongue to keep myself from spitting something back at her, I know she's just trying to wind me up to get me to talk. If I say something I know we'll just end up fighting again, and I've already told her how I feel about this. I wasn't completely honest with her though, I told her she was being stupid for trusting them, but once again I left out the fact that I wasn't brave enough to do anything about my feelings for Emily. Not that I have to tell her that part, I'm sure she already knows, but there's nothing she can say to make me feel better, in fact she'll probably make me feel worse.

In the morning I definitely have to make amends somehow. The only way I'm going to feel better about this is if I actually start being nice to them. I know they won't make it easy, especially Katie, but I hope they give me a chance to redeem myself.

.

Before I even open my eyes in the morning I realize that I'm cuddled into Effy, my body pressed against her back and an arm wrapped around her stomach. I roughly push away from her like she's violated me in some way, even though it was me who was snuggled into her. Last night I made a point to stay as far away from her as possible, but my sleeping self apparently had other plans.

I swing my feet off the bed and sit on the edge for a minute. A night of sleep has done nothing to make me less angry with Effy. I think I may even be more annoyed with her because of how uneasy I feel right now. I'm nervous and anxious about how this is going to turn out, if the twins are going to throw my attitude right back at me or not.

I get up and start pulling clothes on and make my way to the kitchen, trying to calm my nerves. I know I was a right bitch, and it's going to be hard to get them to forgive me, especially Katie. But being nicer to them, particularly Emily, should be easy enough. The hard part is ignoring how beautiful she is, how her smile gives me butterflies, and how her voice makes me want to rip her clothes off…

"Oh shit! Sorry…" I was so caught up with that image that I ran right into Katie while turning the corner to the kitchen.

"Jesus Blondie!"

"Sorry I was just umm…" Thinking about your sister naked, "…just lost in my thoughts I guess."

"Well watch where you're going."

She pushes past me, apparently I was right that she's not going to make it easy to be civil with her. I call to her as she walks down the hallway, "I'm about to make coffee, help yourself if you want some." She doesn't acknowledge my statement in any way and slams the bedroom door.

After a quick shower I pop back out into the kitchen. The twins are nowhere to be seen but they've dove into the coffee. I pour the rest down the drain before heading back to our room. I find Effy just waking up, yawning and stretching as she gets out of bed.

"Do I smell coffee?"

"You do. But I didn't leave any for you because I only think of myself when I make decisions. Sound familiar?" I've made it a point to be nicer to the twins, but I'm still pissed at Effy and I'm not going to pretend I'm not.

She smiles sarcastically, "That's alright, I'm feeling awake and ready to start my day."

"Good, because we have to find a new car."

"I know. And when we do, I'm driving. I think I'll be able to keep from crashing into buildings." She deliberately bumps my shoulder as she leaves the room. It doesn't surprise me, as Effy has never been one to take shit from anyone, including me.

I decide to wait for her in the living room, being around each other more than necessary is only going to let the tension fester between us. Effy joins me after a few minutes with Emily right behind her. This is the first time I've seen her this morning and the image of her sends my head spinning. A part of me is relaxed and giddy because a sleepy Emily is an extra adorable Emily, but the nerves also come back full force.

She watches on as we load our weapons, looking like she's dying to ask where we're going but doesn't want to be nosy, so I decide to solve her confusion.

"We're going to find a new car."

"Do you want us to help? Drive you around?"

I pound a clip into my gun with a loud metallic clank, "No." Her face falls instantly. I didn't mean for that to sound so harsh, maybe I shouldn't have violently loaded a gun as I said it. "We won't be long, there's plenty of cars around, I'm sure we'll find one quickly."

Effy eyes me suspiciously but then turns to Emily, "Feel free to stay, we'll come back if we need you."

Emily nods and watches as I put the handgun in my pants and shove shotgun shells and cartridges into my pockets. I turn back to her before shutting the door to find her looking intensely at me, "We'll be right back."

.

The sun burns into my skin as I walk down the street. It's been rainy and cloudy the last few days, but of course when we don't have the shelter of a car it decides to get hot. We've been searching for over an hour, turns out there wasn't as many vehicles as we thought there were in the underground car park right by our building. We've been wandering the streets since then, making sure to not stray too far from the flat in case we run into trouble.

It's almost like the sun is taunting me. It knows as well as Effy does that I've been acting like an idiot and it just wants to piss me off. In a way it's working, I'm sweating bullets and I hardly have the energy to do what we have to do, let alone some left over to make an extra effort to be a bitch to Effy. I was expecting Effy to talk about the twins almost right when we got outside, but she's hardly said a single word to me since we've left. She finally decides to talk about it as we're walking across a small park to get to an unexamined row of cars.

She's walking a few feet behind me and her voice taps me on the shoulder casually, "I thought you would have made them come with us, considering you don't trust them so much."

"Watch me get proven right when we get home and they've fucked off with the rest of our guns." I wouldn't be surprised if they were gone when we got back considering how I've been acting, but I'd be very surprised if they robbed us. They could be manipulators, just working their way into our lives to fuck us over in the end, but Effy is probably right. They've had plenty of chances to kill, rob, or beat us and they haven't taken them. Usually I'm dying to be proven right, but this time it would be heartbreaking.

I can hear Effy let out an exasperated sigh, "Okay enough bullshit. I'm really fucking sick of this act you're putting on."

I continue walking, not even turning around to answer her, "Yeah? What act is that?"

"I know that trust isn't really the reason you don't want them there."

"Fuck off." There's silence for a few seconds and I'm surprised to think that she's given up, but then she's right next to me, her voice filled with pity.

"Why can't you admit it to me?"

"There's nothing to admit."

"Stop _fucking_ lying to me." She grabs my arm and whips me around, forcing me to stop and face her.

I rip my arm from her grasp, "_There's nothing to talk about_." She doesn't let me get very far when I turn and walk away from her. She grabs my arm again, this time even more violently.

"Stop fucking walking away from me."

"What are you my mum? I'll do whatever I damn well please." I try to unleash my arm from her but this time she's ready for me and her grip tightens. "Let go of me."

"Talk to me."

"There's nothing to say."

Anger flashes through her face, she lets go of my arm and pushes me hard, making me stumble back a few steps, "Yes there fucking _is_ Naomi. I know why you're acting like this, you just don't want to talk about it. You like her, and now she's here, how about you stop being so _fucking stupid…_" She pushes me again, "…and start acting normal. I'm not going to let you fuck your chances with her because you're being a twat."

Effy looks absolutely furious. Usually when she's mad she's so passive aggressive, I've never seen her this outright angry with me. Anger bubbles up in me and I'm about to tackle this bitch to the ground, show her what she gets for trying to pick a fight with me. But I can't bring myself to do it, it's hard to defend yourself when you know you're wrong. Effy could tell I was about to strike, it's the defensive position she takes up that causes laughter to ripple through me.

"What's so fucking funny?"

"I'm sorry…but look at us, we were about to fight, it's a bit ridiculous."

"It's not funny!" She pushes me again, laughing as she does it, but it doesn't take long for her to become serious, "I'm serious Naomi…talk to me."

Her eyes are pleading, begging me to open up to her. Even though Effy is my best friend in the world, it's still terrifying to talk to her, to lay myself out for her to judge me, but I have no choice.

"Do you know how hard this is going to be? To be around her all the time, constantly reminded of what I can't have?"

"How do you know you can't have her?"

I can feel the annoyance coming back and I throw my arms out to the side, "You know why! Even if she is gay, which is extremely unlikely, it's even more unlikely that she'd actually be interested in me. I'll probably fall for her and she'll never feel the same about me, or I'll fall for her and she'll fuck me and then fuck off. Don't you realize how horrible that would be? This life is hard enough, I don't need the extra stress of that bullshit."

"It could work out, you're going to let this opportunity slip through your fingers?"

I feel myself getting emotional, there are tears threatening to spill from my eyes, "I have to…I can't handle this."

"Yes you can, I know you can. I know this is what you want and I think you should stop fucking around and go for it. It might go tits up and if it does, we'll get through it, we can get through anything. Personally, I'd like them to stick around, not only because I know you want her but because I think Emily is right, we should be sticking together. But I'm going to leave it up to you; they'll probably be leaving today or tomorrow and when they do, I won't stop them. If you want them to stay _you_ have to ask them to."

She gives me one last serious look before turning and walking away towards the cars we were going for and leaves me standing there, the weight of this decision falling heavily on my mind. I hurry along to catch up to her and walk next to her in silence at first, not sure of what to say.

"Aren't you a little scrawny to be picking fights?"

She smiles, "Your opinion..."

.

* * *

.

I'm starting to get anxious. They said they wouldn't be long but it's been just over three hours. What if something has happened to them? What if they never come back?

"What are you so uptight about?" Katie walks from the kitchen and sits back down next to me on the couch, unpausing the movie we were watching before she left.

"I don't know I'm just worried about them, it's been a while and they said they wouldn't be long."

"I'm sure they're fine."

"Should we go look for them?"

Katie puts a hand on my knee and laughs lightly, "Emily, relax. It's only 4:00, I'm sure they'll be back."

I need to do something, something to take my mind off things and let the time pass. "I'm gonna take a shower."

"Good, you smell like shit."

I push her shoulder playfully as I get up and make my way to our room. I take my time in the shower, letting the water cascade down around me, calming me down and quieting my thoughts. When I finally get out it takes longer than usual to get dressed. For the first time in months I find myself actually thinking about what clothes I should wear. Not that I have all that many options, but today I think I'll actually make an effort to look cute. I put on a fitted v neck and a short pair of shorts rather than the more comfortable long ones I usually wear.

I walk back out to the living room, expecting to rejoin Katie, but instead I find Naomi in her spot. I feel my face light up when I see her and I quickly try to hide my excitement as she looks up at me.

"You're home…"

She nods, "Yep."

"I was worried about you, I thought you'd be home earlier."

"Yeah it took a little longer than we thought, and we picked up a few things. I know I should have called to tell you I'd be late, but I'm afraid I've lost my phone." She tries to keep a straight face but fails as a cheeky grin spreads across her face. I haven't seen her smile since that day at the gas station, and I hadn't realized how much I've missed it until just now.

"Well, I'm glad your back." I hold her gaze until Effy appears at my side from the kitchen.

"Hey Emily. Naomi did you ever go through Peter's room?"

"No, I thought you did."

Effy shakes her head and slinks off down the hall as I turn to Naomi, "Who the fuck is Peter?"

Naomi smiles again and my heart melts a little, "The kid who used to live here. We found pictures of the whole family," She shrugs, "He looked like a Peter."

My eyes scan the shelves stacked with books as I try to decide what to read. Just as I pluck one from the top row and pop open the cover, there's a yell from Effy in the third bedroom. Before I even realize what she's said, Naomi has nearly fallen out of her chair in her rush to run down the hall towards Effy's voice. My heart speeds up with worry as I follow her, but when I hear laughter my worry turns into confusion. I step into the room and both Effy and Naomi's faces are possibly the happiest I've ever seen them, but it's not hard to figure out why. Effy hurries to open the little baggie of weed she's just found. As she starts breaking it up on the kid's bedside table I know it's going to be a good fucking night.

.

I put my head back on the couch, reveling in the high that I haven't experienced in at least a couple of months. It's just the drugs of course, but I finally think everything might be okay. I have no idea how long we've been sitting here and I don't care. It's the most carefree I've felt in three months, just laughing and joking with Katie and two people who I could have been friends with in a past life.

Effy lays down on the floor and sparks a cigarette. Naomi almost immediately leans over to hit her, "Stop smoking in the flat! It fucking reeks in here!"

"Jesus, calm down _Mum_. No way I'm going outside."

"Whatever, give me the lighter." Effy scoots over to Naomi to oblige her request, and puts her head in her lap as Naomi re-lights her spliff.

I watch them looking so comfortable together and it seems almost like they're flirting. Have I misjudged them? Are they not only friends, but lovers? This is the first time they've given me any sort of hint that they might be, and I can't shake the idea that there might not be any point in getting to know Naomi more. I stare at them and my jealousy peaks as my paranoia spins out of control, I have no idea if this is true or not but I have to get the fuck out of here so I stop assuming the worst. I slip quietly off to the bathroom, leaving the three stoned messes on the floor of the living room.

I stay in the bathroom until I'm able to relax. Before returning to the smoke fest that is the living room I examine my face in the mirror. Now that I'm used to the black eyes sometimes I forget they're even there, but every time I look in the mirror it's a harsh reminder that I'm not my usual self. The stitched wound on my cheek looks good, almost healed, my hand freezes as I run a finger over them, my mind made up in a second. I start rifling through the drawers until I find tweezers and a small pair of scissors. It's been five days or so and it looks good, these fuckers are coming out.

Unfortunately the cut is at a pretty awkward angle and my attempts mostly end in me painfully poking myself in the face, it's probably best to let Katie to do this for me. I open the door and almost immediately run into Naomi after stepping into the hallway.

"Whatcha doin?" I'm about to bitch and defend myself, thinking her concern is coming from suspicion, but in the darkness I can make out a small smirk on her lips and the curiosity in her face.

"I was trying to take my stitches out, but it's hard to do in the mirror, I was going to get Katie to help me."

"That might not be the best idea, they've gotten into the vodka."

The drunken laughs of Katie and Effy float through the hall, "Shit…"

"I could help you if you like." Her face is hopeful, almost pleading. I stare at her for a few seconds, hardly believing that the good side of Naomi, the one that I've been waiting for, is finally coming out. "I had to stitch up Effy once, so I know how to do it."

"Yeah…yeah that'd be great actually." Right when I turn around and push the door open again I immediately regret my decision. Naomi is going to take out my stitches. The stitches under my eye. Meaning she'll be standing very close to me with her hands on my face. I am way too stoned to handle this right now. This is not a good idea.

I turn slowly and hand the tweezers and scissors to her. In a second she closes the distance between us, takes the tools from me and gets right in my face. Her scent completely fills me and all I can think about is pulling her closer and nuzzling my face into the crook of her neck and breathing in that delicious fucking smell. I guess I never really appreciated how good a woman can smell. I almost gasp when she cups my cheek lightly and runs her thumb over the wound.

She pats her hand on the counter, "Lean against this, steady yourself."

I comply wordlessly and lean against the counter, thankful for the few seconds of peace I have before she moves closer again and repositions herself in front of me. My hands are buzzing, like they're the only part of my body I'm aware of. All of my focus is going into keeping them at my sides and not touching the beautiful girl in front of me, I end up gripping the fabric of my shorts tightly to keep them in place.

Her gaze flicks up to look me in the eye, "You ready?" I nod, "Sorry if I hurt you at all."

"I think I can handle it."

She smiles briefly before returning her attention a fraction of inch lower to my wound. She's so close to me that I can feel her breath on my face, if I tried to kiss her I would hardly even have to move. Her soft lips are held together tightly and she occasionally pulls her bottom lip with her teeth as she concentrates.

_Shit, I'm staring at her lips. _I tear my gaze upwards only to find her amazingly blue eyes. They're squinted and focused on her task, but it's obvious she's been smoking. Her eyelids are heavy and her eyes a little red, she'd make an adorable stoner. She'd make an adorable anything, but especially stoner. _Fuck now I'm staring at her eyes._ Her face is so close to mine that no matter where I look she's there. I force my eyes shut to avoid any further perving. Jesus, this is like fucking torture.

"Did I hurt you?" She must have taken my sudden eye closing as a wince.

"No, you're fine."

"Good, last one." She grabs the last stitch with the tweezers and snips it, sending a sting through my face. I instinctively reach out for something to brace myself, but she is the only thing in reach, and I end up holding her side tightly in pain as my eyes pop open. "Fuck! Sorry! I nicked you." She pulls the stitch out and puts the tools on the counter. The pain slowly dissipates as she cups my cheek and wipes away the blot of blood that formed with her thumb.

I look up into her eyes and her hand freezes on my face, her thumb still pressed to the spot of blood. She stares at me and I'm almost positive that her intense stare is one of fear. Why would she be scared? I almost roll my eyes at myself, I've been staring at her like I'm about to jump her and I'm still gripping her side, she's probably scared that I'm about to pounce on her. I pull my hand away quickly and drop my gaze, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. She blinks a few times and then steps away from me, moving to rinse my blood off of her hand.

The mood in the room just took a swift turn to awkward. Even so, I still find myself happy that she's actually being nice to me. Maybe she's coming around to me and Katie being here, and maybe the hot and cold business is finally over. My shoulders slump when I remember we've been smoking, everyone is friendlier when they're stoned out of their mind.

Whether her politeness is going to stick around or not is unknown, but one thing is for sure, I'm never going to find out what's going through that beautiful head of hers unless I talk to her.

"You're being nice to me."

She pauses as she dries her hands, "Yeah…I've been kind of a tit—"

"Tell me about it."

She looks hurt for a second but then looks at my reflection in the mirror and her face softens when she sees my smirk. "I'm really sorry Emily. I was never angry with you, not really, I was mad at Effy."

"It's alright. Katie probably won't be this forgiving though."

Naomi smiles and shrugs, "I figured." An awkward silence fills the room for a few seconds before she clears her throat and gestures to my cut, "It looks pretty good, you probably won't have much of a scar." I look back into the mirror and run a finger over the damaged tissue.

"I hope not." I catch Naomi's eye in the mirror and we both look away quickly.

"Should we go back and join them? If we're too late they'll drink the place dry."

It's almost painful how much I want to say yes, but I know I can't be drunk around this girl, I'd fucking attack her. "Actually I'm a bit tired, I think I'll go to bed. Thanks for the help."

"Oh…okay, well, goodnight then." She gives me a sad smile and leaves me alone.

After a few seconds to collect myself I practically run to the safety of my bed and collapse onto it. I sit with my back against the wall, hugging a pillow tightly to my chest. What the fuck am I going to do? How can I live with someone that I'm so pathetically attracted to? The last thing I want to do is creep out one of the girls that has taken us in and get us kicked out. When I wanted to find more people I never thought about the fact that I might fall for them, I figured the chances of me coming across someone I would want were pretty slim, but I've been proven wrong, very wrong. We should get out of here before shit gets too heavy.

After a while of being stuck in my own thoughts, the door opens and Katie stumbles into the room. I can't help but laugh at her when she comes in, the girl is trashed. I wanted to tell her how I felt about Naomi and talk about what we should do, but it'll have to wait for the morning, she is in no state to have a real conversation.

"Look at you, you're wasted." She smiles drunkenly and practically falls onto the bed and cuddles next to my legs. "Did you have fun?"

"Yeah I think I like them, especially Smiles. She's cool ya know? Funny as fuck. I haven't laughed that much since James was alive."

I cringe at the sound of his name, I don't think either of us have said it aloud since we left for London and she so nonchalantly threw it out there. I only hope she doesn't linger on that thought for long, I really don't want a drunk and stoned Katie crying about James right now.

Luckily she didn't wait for me to join her on memory lane and propped herself up on her elbows to look at me. "We haven't had that much fun in ages."

"You saying I'm not fun?"

Her giggles increase in intensity and she looks up at me, "Yeah! You went to bed like an hour ago! You're fucking…hey your stitches are gone!"

"Yeah, Naomi just took them out."

She sits up and squints to look at my face, "It looks good, you're almost healed." Her face turns serious, far too serious for anything happy to come out of her mouth.

"You alright?"

"I still feel terrible, I'm sorry. I should've gotten to you sooner."

"What to stop this?" I point at my face, "Katie this is fucking nothing. I would probably be dead if it weren't for you. You saved me."

She smiles softly and lays back down, using my leg as a pillow. "I won't let it happen again, I promise. No one fucks with the Fitch twins."

"Nope…no one."

After a few minutes I assumed she fell asleep but then I feel her voice vibrate against my leg, "I love you Emsy."

I can't stop the huge smile that hits my face. I know Katie loves me, but it's rare that she actually says it. "I love you too, Katie."


	7. Drunk Decisions

**An update within a few days of the last? I know, it's crazy. Enjoy!**

**Chapter 7 - Drunk Decisions**

I've been sitting on the floor of our room for over an hour. Katie woke me up fairly early with an elbow in the ribs. I don't know what it is about that girl when she's drunk and asleep, but she seems to lose all control of her limbs. Since I was up I decided I'd get her some water and medicine for the headache that she will probably have when she wakes up. After placing them on the bedside table I slumped against the far wall and sat on the floor, knowing I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep.

It wasn't only Katie's flailing limbs that kept me up last night, but also the whirlwind of thoughts in my head. I don't know how I'm supposed to explain to Katie how I feel about Naomi, I'm hardly going to get all sappy with her and tell her how Naomi makes me feel, how I knew I was fucked as soon as I saw those damn eyes for the first time on the motorway. Something happens to me when I'm around her, and I don't want Katie taking the piss as I try to explain it.

But I also don't want to make her leave because I can tell that she likes it here. I can't remember the last time I've seen her as happy as she was last night, and before I started freaking out about Naomi I admit I was having a great time too. I'm sure it was mostly the weed, but it's nice just being with people our age and hanging out, especially when Naomi isn't being a prick.

The possibility of having friends again is a strange feeling, I thought that part of our life had died along with the friends we had, and here I am fucking it all up by wanting one of them. I know Katie would usher me out of here in a second if I asked her to, but I'm not going to make her do that, she deserves to stay here if she wants. I can bottle up my feelings, if I've taken on zombies I sure as hell can take on a hot blonde.

It's hard to keep my mind from drifting back to last night when Naomi was taking my stitches out, I can feel a lazy smile spread across my face whenever I do. It seemed like torture at the time, but now I realize that it was bliss. Being so close to her was amazing, even if I wasn't allowed to touch her. If we leave, I'll never get that opportunity again.

A groan sounds from the bed and I look up to find Katie slowly sitting up and stretching, her eyes blinking quickly, trying to get used to the light in the room.

"The water and pills on the table are for you."

Katie looks to the side of the room I'm on and her gaze eventually drops to my slouched position on the floor.

"Fuck are you doing on the floor?"

I shrug, "It was comfortable."

"Whatever." She hastily pops the pills, "Thanks for this."

"How are you feeling?"

She takes a deep breath to take a second to assess the severity of her hangover, "Not bad. You sure you're okay? You look fucking depressed."

"I'm fine, I was just thinking…"

"About what?"

"About how long we should stay. They said for a night or two, do you think they want us to leave?"

Katie crawls over to the side of the bed closest to me and sits on the edge, "I was thinking about that yesterday. They don't seem to mind us, but I don't want to overstay our welcome."

I make my way to the bed and sit next to her, "Would you want to stay if we were welcome?" I don't think any answer to that question would calm me down. Staying means having friends, but having to keep Naomi as _only_ a friend. Leaving means no friends, but also not having to watch myself to make sure I'm not flirting with or perving on anyone.

"Yeah, I like it here…I like them." A sigh escapes my lips but I'm not exactly sure if it's one of relief or not.

"I'd like to just ask them, but I don't want them to feel pressured to let us stay."

"Neither do I." There's a long silence, both of us trying to figure out a way of asking them while avoiding the awkward situation of a negative answer. "Let's tell them we're leaving and pack up, and if they stop us, we'll stay, but if not, we'll move on."

"Yeah, okay."

My mouth agrees but the terrible feeling that manifests within me forces me to face the truth. I don't want to leave here, just the realization that it might happen today practically makes me nauseous. I'd like to have friends again, and if there's any chance at me and Naomi being something more, I don't want to miss out on it. Fuck the risk of getting to close to them and having to worry about them, if it means not having to feel like this, I think it'd be worth it.

It's nearly noon by the time Katie gets into the shower and I force myself off the bed, I'm sure the other two are awake by now. I head to the kitchen, wanting to get some food before me and Katie head out. My heart starts beating faster when I find Naomi in the kitchen doing the dishes, looking rather awake compared to the morning grumpiness that I've witnessed before.

She turns and spots me in the doorway, smiles brightly, and my heartbeat ups the ante even more, "Good morning."

"Hey…"

I stand awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen, trying to calm down and think of how to approach the subject, hoping that her response is what I'm looking for.

"We're going to uh, to head out today...find our own place…"

Naomi's hands freeze momentarily in the sink before she dries her hands. She turns to face us, her eyes meeting mine. _Please ask us to stay…please ask us to stay._

"Well it was nice meeting you both. Maybe we'll see you around one day, good luck." She turns around swiftly and leaves the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of something off the counter as she goes.

"Well I guess she doesn't mind that we're leaving."

"Yeah…guess not." It's like she doesn't even care. If there's not even a chance that we'll be friends, that answers the question regarding if we could ever be more or not.

As we grab a bite to eat and then pack up our stuff, I think about what the fuck we're going to do now. Besides having friends once again, staying with them would have given us a purpose. Not only was there my own personal mission of finding out everything and anything about Naomi, but we also could have helped them find their friend Cook. Even though I never knew him I still hope he's alive, it would have been nice to see them reunite. Living with nothing to look forward to is a bleak existence.

When we're done packing up the bedroom we run into a towel-clad Effy in the hallway.

"Morning." She stops for a second when she notices we're both carrying bags and her expression changes from her usual calm to concerned, "Where are you going?"

"Naomi didn't tell you?" She shakes her head, "We're leaving, to find our own place."

"Oh…well, don't leave yet, let me put some clothes on real quick."

"We're not done packing yet, take your time."

She walks briskly down the hallway and we continue through the rest of the flat, picking up random things we left around and food from the kitchen. We sit on the couch for just a minute before Effy returns to us, looking slightly annoyed, but at least clothed.

"Do you know where you're heading to?"

"Not sure, we'll probably be staying in London though."

"Good, hopefully we'll see each other again. Thanks for saving us, I'm not sure what we would have done otherwise."

"Thanks for letting us stay here, it was a nice change." Effy looks like she wants to say something but quickly shuts her mouth, and walks across the room to their stash of weapons. She gives me a handgun and Katie a shotgun and a box of shells.

I hold it with the tips of my fingers, like if I don't touch it too much it will be easier for her to take it back, "No Effy, you've done enough, really."

"Please, take them. I know you're running low." She watches Katie, who's looking at the gun in awe, "Shotguns are my favorite, really fucks 'em at close range."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. Take it so I don't have to worry about you." Effy says it to Katie, her gaze eventually flickering to me, like I was added as a second thought. "Good luck."

We both nod in thanks and turn to leave.

"Oh, wait…" Effy digs in her pocket and pulls out a picture. It's a picture of Naomi, looking a little younger and more than a little drunk, with her arm slung around a short-haired boy, "That's Cook, if you happen to see him, tell him where we are, yeah?"

"We will."

.

* * *

.

The liquid burns my insides as I struggle to swallow it. I've never drank this much this early in the day, and apparently for good reason. Hearing Emily say they were leaving was like getting punched in the face, and I could think of no better cure than drowning myself in liquor, this decision feels too complicated to handle sober. I thought they'd be leaving soon, but not _this_ soon. I figure I still have half an hour or so to change my mind and ask them to stay if I decide to.

Effy storms into the room, fresh from the shower in only a towel, "They're leaving."

"I know."

"What's in your hand?" She steps closer and sees the bottle of vodka that she was working on last night, "Are you drunk?"

I put my thumb and forefinger an inch apart in front of my face, "Just a little."

"What the fuck Naomi? You're going to sit here and get drunk while they leave?"

"That was my plan, and I think I'm executing it quite nicely." I take another pull from the bottle and wince as it slides begrudgingly down my throat. "You know my best decisions come from being drunk."

"No, you _think_ your best decisions come from being drunk."

She walks across the room to the wardrobe and drops her towel to the ground. I raise my arms dramatically in front of my face, "Jesus Eff! You could have warned me!"

"Shut it, it's nothing you haven't seen before." True, but I still would have liked to be warned before naked Effy was thrown in my face. She pulls a pair of shorts on and turns to face me as she struggles to pull a shirt over her head, "I'm going to say goodbye. I'm not going to ask them to stay, that's your job."

"I know."

She stands there for a second, eyeing me seriously, "You're just going to sit there?"

"Yep. I've said my goodbyes." She takes one of our pictures off the wall and slams the door as she leaves.

"Fuuuuuck."

I let my head fall back against the wall, the fact that Effy wants them to stay so bad makes me feel like I'm making a huge mistake. They're strangers, they should mean nothing to me, but I already feel so attached. What the fuck is wrong with me?

I need a fucking cigarette. I sit on the edge of the bed and try to light one, but my hands won't cooperate. I don't know if it's because I'm drunk or if my hands are shaking because I'm nervous. I jump when the door opens and Effy stands in the doorway, arms crossed and staring me down like a parent about to punish her child.

"They left a couple minutes ago. Happy?" She exits as abruptly as she entered, leaving her words hanging in the air and slowly working their way into my brain.

No. I'm not happy. Not at all. The only inklings of happiness I've felt in the last few days is when I've let Emily in and stopped trying to push her away. She has the power to make me so happy, but also the power to tear me down completely. But it's been so long since I've truly felt happy, I think it just might be worth it.

The bottle falls off my lap and thuds onto the floor as I get up and bolt for the door. Effy is laying on the couch and watches me, confused, as I grab a gun and tear out the door. She yells something after me but my mind is racing so much that I can't even decipher what she said.

I curse living on the top floor as I fly down the stairs, my feet trying to be more coordinated than they are at the moment. I finally reach the lobby after many stumbles and nearly-sprained ankles. I thought I would run into them in here, I hope I'm not too late. I bolt out the door and turn left towards the car park that I know they left their car in. _I can't be too late, please be in there…_

I turn the corner into the structure and am almost blinded by headlights against the dark of the car park. The next thing I know I'm rolling off the hood of a car and barely catching myself before falling face first onto the cement.

It's a good thing I'm drunk, I imagine that would have hurt a lot more if I wasn't. The car doors open as I push myself off the ground.

"S'alright! I'm okay!"

"What the actual fuck, Blondie!"

I try to put weight on my right leg but abandon that plan straight away and lean against the concrete wall behind me.

Emily rushes up to me, "Naomi! What are you doing? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." I wave my arms in front of me, as if her worry was in the air between us and I could push it away. I hope I don't sound as drunk as I feel.

"Are you drunk?" Shit, apparently I do.

"No! Okay, yeah a little, but that's not the point. I have to say something!"

"Well what the fuck is it?" Katie throws her hands in the air, demanding a reason for my intrusion.

Effy storms through the door of our building and runs over to us, immediately taking in my position of leaning against the wall and holding a hand to my leg.

"What the fuck happened?"

"I ran into their car."

"You _ran into their car_?"

"Yeah, we kind of hit her, luckily we weren't going very fast…"

"The stupid bitch practically jumped in front of us!"

I put my hands up in an effort to make them shut up for a fucking second, "I have something to say!" Emily looks at me with a slight smile on her face, "Stay with us. Please. I want…I mean _we_ want, you to stay with us."

"Why the fuck didn't you say something before we packed our shit up?"

"I'm sorry, I had to think about it, I had to be sure. Stay with us."

"Like for good?"

"For as long as you can put up with her." Effy gestures to me with a slight eye roll and continues, "It was nice having you around. You're right Emily, we don't need to avoid everybody."

Katie and Emily stare at each other for a second until Katie shrugs before turning back to Effy, "We'll stay."

"Great! I mean…good, that's good."

Katie rolls her eyes, "You better help us take our shit back up all those stairs."

"Of course!"

Effy puts her hand on my shoulder to stop me from moving, "Naoms you can hardly walk, you're not carrying anything, I'll help you two though."

I watch helplessly as the three of them take everything out of the car and Emily re-parks it. As I struggle to make it up the stairs, Effy matches my speed and hangs back with me. I thought it was because she didn't want me to get too far back by myself, but turns out she wanted to talk to me outside of the twin's earshot.

"How's your leg?"

"It'll be fine, I think it's just bruised."

"You're an idiot."

I laugh, "Yeah, I know."

"But I think you made the right decision."

"I don't know if it's right or not, but I think I feel happy."

She smiles brightly, "Good."

When we get into the flat she practically pushes me onto the couch, "Stay here so you don't hurt yourself anymore."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, sleep it off."

I follow Effy's orders, knowing she won't let me disobey. I close my eyes and when I open them I see Emily walking from the hallway to the kitchen, I must have dozed off for a bit. When I stand up I have to take a second to steady myself, apparently I'm still a little drunk. I need water, my mouth is completely dry and tastes like vodka. Emily is emptying a box of food onto the shelves and she smiles warmly at me as I walk in and get myself a glass of water.

"How are you feeling?"

A giggle escapes my lips before I can stop it, "Still a little drunk. How long was I out?"

"About an hour. Do you make a habit of vodka at noon?"

"Not really, I guess the mood just struck me today." I drain my glass and refill it.

As I drink I catch a glimpse of a purple package in Emily's hand and turn my head in shock to find that it is exactly what I thought it was. I choke on the water and it turns into some sort of laughter and coughing fit, causing Emily to startle and look at me with concern and confusion etched in her face.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. It's just…of course you have Garibaldis."

"What do you mean?"

"Garibaldis, cigarettes, it's like you have everything I'm craving most." Over Emily's head I see Effy appear in the doorway and, in true Cook fashion, she holds her hands out in front of her chest and mouths, "And tits."

Emily pops herself up onto the counter and rips open the package, handing me a biscuit and munching on one herself. "Good thing you kept me around then."

"A _very _good thing." I lean against the counter and revel in the taste that I haven't enjoyed in months. "Thank you. Where'd you get them?"

"In a shop a bit south, maybe I'll show you one day."

Eating Garibaldis while drunk, with Emily being all adorable next to me, when did life get so perfect? Well it's not quite perfect, perfection would be wrapping her up in my arms and never letting go, leaving us to live our lives inconveniently because we're attached at the tits.

"Naomi, have you seen that bottle of wine we were drinking a couple nights ago?"

"What? I thought we finish—"

"I think I left it on the roof. Will you go look for it for me?"

I stare at Effy like she's sprouted another head as I try to figure out what the hell she's on about.

Emily excitedly hops off the counter, "There's roof access?"

Effy winks at me behind Emily's back, _that sneaky little bitch._

"Yeah there is, I'll show you up there."

I let Emily leave the kitchen first and I give Effy a shove as I walk by her, "Thanks Naomi, awfully nice of you."

"Anything for you Effy."

I follow Emily out the door and to the stairs. My tipsiness isn't enough to kick my conversation into gear, and I walk behind her searching my mind desperately for something to say.

"I thought there were more floors up here, I didn't realize you were at the top. What made you choose the top floor?"

"It was the only one we found unlocked, in decent shape, and with keys."

"Is there anyone else in the building?"

"There might be people on the second and fifth floor, not sure though."

We walk through the door and I watch Emily as she takes in the view and examines every corner of the rooftop. She peaks over the edges onto the streets below and finally settles into one place, close to the spot me and Effy were drawn to on our first night here.

I stand next to her and we both peer out over the city for a minute, "It's so peaceful."

"I know, it's strange."

"Oh! I forgot to give this back…" She digs in her pocket and hands me a picture of me and Cook, it must be the one Effy took from our room earlier. "Effy gave it to us so we would know what he looks like." It's interesting that she chose a picture of me and Cook. I know we have at least a few pictures of Cook alone. "It's a nice picture, looks like you two were close."

I smile as I remember the party this was taken at. I didn't want to go but Cook, Effy, and our friend Freddie practically dragged me out, and I had a damn good time. Freddie took this picture of us; we had been trying to dance to the song that was playing but kept falling all over each other, so we were content to just sway there and yell along to the lyrics.

"We were. He was a real prick when I first met him, but he grew up a bit. Still a pervy bastard though."

"You look happy."

"I was. That was the day after my 16th birthday."

She smiles and finally tears her eyes away from the picture in my hands. "Thanks for letting us stay, it'll be nice to have friends again." She shifts uncomfortably, "I mean…not that we're friends exactly, that was a bit presumptuous. We hardly know each other…"

I laugh as she continues needlessly defending her statement. I put a hand on her shoulder to stop her and then quickly remove it.

"Emily, relax. I'd love to be your friend."

That beautiful fucking smile returns to her face and I melt a little bit, "I'd like that too."


	8. Fragile Walls

**Will be expediting my uploading for a couple chapters since holy hell there are more chapters than I thought before shit gets going. So here is the next, and I'll post 9 in a day or two.**

**Chapter 8 - **

"I'm not taking that." Katie slides the shotgun across the kitchen table towards Effy.

"Yes, you are."

Katie crosses her arms over her chest and glares defiantly at Effy, "Oh, am I?"

"Yes."

"My aim is shit and I've never used something like that, the kick will fuck me up. I'll do more harm than good."

"You only have to use it at close range, you'll be fine."

"No."

They both glare at each other, neither of them backing down.

"She really does have shit aim…"

Both Effy and Katie look at me, glaring at me like it was a crime to interrupt their staring contest before their faces soften and Katie nods in agreement.

"Exactly, Emily knows. I'm rubbish, I'm not taking that."

"I _really_ don't want to be around Katie with a shotgun." All three of us turn to Naomi walking down the hallway, "I'd like to keep my face intact, thanks."

Katie raises her eyebrows at Naomi and slides the gun back towards her, "You know what? I think I will take it."

Effy and I exchange amused glances as Naomi rolls her eyes. These two will do anything to piss each other off, but never really seem to be that mad, it's like bickering is the only way they know how to interact.

We all leave the flat and start heading down the stairs. We drank the last of our alcohol last night so our first goal of the day is an alcohol run. On the way down, Effy and Naomi are arguing about something; I couldn't tell you what they're talking about, I'm too busy watching her ramble away. It's a good thing the girl likes to talk, because I could spend all day watching the way her lips move.

Oh shit, staring again. I avert my eyes to the ground and actually start to listen to what they're talking about.

"I should get last week and the week before that." Effy stares at Naomi wordlessly, but her argument is evident in her gaze, "That one at the service station was mid-week, and that fall kill was last Wednesday. The week ends on Saturday, so I get the last two weeks."

I laugh at them, "You two are like children."

"What? Why?" Naomi looks back at me curiously.

"Only children would take something as devastating and serious as an apocalypse and turn it into a competition." Effy snickers and skips down a few steps to Katie so she can whisper something to her, making them both burst out in laughter.

I'm about to demand to know what all their little secrets are about, but Naomi's voice brings my attention fully back to her, "It does sound a bit ridiculous when you say it like that."

We walk through the doors to the lobby, "So who's winning this 'kill of the week' competition?"

"Effy should be only two up on me, but she claims that my last two kills were in the same week, which isn't true."

Katie turns around and pushes open the front door with her back while she talks to Naomi, "Don't you usually just shoot them? How is that so impressive to get kill of the week?"

"Sometimes they sneak up on you and catch you off-guard without a gun, so you have to be creative. Really, the competition is about who is better at using their surroundings to their advantage."

"You've put a lot of thought into this haven't you?"

Naomi nods proudly, "Yes, in fact I have."

Katie rolls her eyes and starts walking down the sidewalk with Effy following shortly after, leaving me and Naomi in front of the doors. It's not until Naomi shifts uncomfortably that I realize I've been smiling like an idiot at her the whole time her and Katie were talking.

"What?" She doesn't sound angry, more self-conscious than anything.

A small laugh escapes me when I think of all the answers I'd like to say to her but would never dream of. If I could, I think I'd go with, "Stop talking and fucking kiss me already."

Instead I shrug, "Nothing…it's nothing."

She eyes me suspiciously and starts walking away, but something behind her catches her eye and the next thing I know her hand is gripping my arm. I gasp at the sudden contact as she pulls me into her and starts shooting at something to her right. My hands are nestled between us on her chest with my face against her shoulder. If I wasn't too preoccupied in cherishing the moment of being close to her, I would laugh at the damsel-in-distress feeling of it all. Her free arm wraps tightly around my shoulders and I snuggle into her further, a contented sigh escaping my lips. I don't even care if she's missing her target and I'm about to be torn to bits, I have to die at some point, and when I do, I hope I'm as content as I am now.

I'm in no hurry to abandon my position after she takes three shots and silence falls over us. After another few seconds of bliss she practically pushes me off of her, and I see that same look of fear in her eyes that I saw for the first time after she took my stitches out. That fucking look that I loathe with every fiber of my being.

As much as I'd like to smack that look off of her face, or more accurately, kiss it off, instead I let it slide and give her a smirk as I look over my shoulder to the body on the ground and back to her, "Naomi Campbell, were you protecting me?"

She rolls her eyes but the slightest of smiles gives her away, "You were in my way."

I look over my shoulder again at the body, judging by the angle it's at, I was definitely _not_ in the way, "Sure..."

Satisfied that the danger is gone, we all continue down the sidewalk. Naomi walks tensely beside me, I can practically hear the gears turning in her head. It's been a week since we officially moved in with them, and this is how it's been the last few days between Naomi and I. I can't stop myself from flirting with her, and sometimes she reciprocates, acting gayer than a fucking rainbow. But then she flips a switch, closes off and pushes me away, this time quite literally. Katie denies it, but she must have told Naomi about my sexuality (or more accurately, Katie told Effy and Effy told Naomi), and when Naomi thinks we're getting too close, she pushes away so I don't get the wrong idea.

Besides the strange tension between me and Naomi, it's been nice living with them. The group dynamic has been slowly changing; it no longer feels like Katie and me are intruding on their space, but starting to feel like the flat belongs to all of us. It's nice having other people around when I need a break from Katie, and I take full advantage of that now that I'm getting closer with these two.

Yesterday I noticed that whenever we're out wandering the streets it seems we pair off the same way; me and Naomi walking a few paces behind Katie and Effy. That's probably mostly due to me, since I try to be around Naomi as much as possible without it being obvious that I want to fuck her brains out. Luckily she doesn't seem to mind my presence, and Katie and Effy get along beautifully so it works out.

I have to contain my smile when I think about our first full day here, Naomi made me direct her to where we were when I found the Garibaldi's. It took over an hour of driving around to find the place, and we had to listen to Katie bitch for half the time. But I would have done much more for Naomi so I could put that smile on her face. The amount of adorable I witnessed as she happily carried an armful of packages to the car would have been worth days of searching.

Katie suddenly stops in front of me and I'm so caught up in my daydream that I almost run into her. She turns around swiftly, "You said there was a pub right down the street, Campbell."

"There is, it's right down here."

"That's what you said five minutes ago."

"We're in London, we're bound to run into a pub eventually."

"There's one right next to the flat on the other side of the museum, I'd rather carry all this booze a block rather than halfway across town." She walks the opposite way as we were, "Come on then."

Naomi looks between Effy and me for back up. Effy shrugs and starts walking after Katie, "Actually I think she's right."

Naomi huffs in frustration as we follow them and lowers her voice so the other two won't hear, "How can you be twins and be so different?"

"Different, ey? How so?" Of course I know exactly how Katie and me are different, but I'd _love_ to find out what Naomi has to say about it.

"She's so loud and so frequently obnoxious, and you're…" Her voice trails off as she tries to find words.

"I'm what?"

She shrugs, "You know…not."

"So I'm quiet and only occasionally obnoxious?"

"Something like that."

We pass the museum and Katie spots the pub she was talking about.

"Ha! Fucking told you Blondie!"

We walk into the pub and the other three make a beeline for behind the bar, but I take my time. I take it all in, wander through the tables, trying to imagine it filled with people having a good time, rather than the empty, depressing scene that it is now.

I'm about to join them but the sound of a chair sliding across the floor behind me followed by a strangled groan stops me in my tracks and seems to stop time completely. I doubt I even have time to pull my gun from my pants, so instead I grab a knife off the table in front of me and swing it around wildly. Somehow I manage to make contact with cold flesh and my eyes close when I feel the chill of thick blood spray onto my face. I kick my leg out in attempt to put some distance between us, I feel my foot make contact with something, but I don't want to open my eyes to see how effective it was.

I hear a scream behind me and know that this is it. I knew I could only last in this world for so long, and I've come to the end. I'm too close to the zombie for any of them to safely take a shot, and by the time they get to me I'll already be bitten. Any second now I'll be enveloped by cold and in a few hours I'll be a blood thirsty monster.

A gun shot echoes around the walls. After a few seconds without being mauled and without my body bursting out in pain, alerting me that I've been shot, I slowly open my eyes. My kick must have worked better than I thought, the woman's body is a few feet away from me, lying still with a knife sticking from the base of its neck.

The image sucks the air from my lungs and I feel tears well up in my eyes. The blood on my face sends violent shivers through my body, and I frantically wipe my face with my shirt to try to quell the building nausea in my stomach. All the time I've spent trying to forget the day this all started becomes useless as the memories flood my mind and take me back to three months ago. The false wall of security I've built is collapsing around me, the bricks falling one at a time and pounding into my brain. I turn around quickly in search of Katie, she'll know what's wrong, she'll know exactly what I'm thinking of, she always knows. When I turn I find her already walking up to me and she pulls me into a hug as I try to keep the tears from falling.

"It's okay Ems." Katie releases me from her embrace but keeps an arm around my shoulder, "Let's go home." She turns to Naomi and Effy, "I'm taking her back, give us a minute, yeah?"

I hear Naomi's voice, "Emily, are you okay?"

Am I okay? Nothing has changed but I feel like my whole world is falling down around me. When I look up to meet her eyes and see the terrified and confused look on her face, I realize that I don't want to leave her. Nothing is okay, but if I could be in bed with Naomi right now, just laying with her, getting lost in her embrace, I think everything would be a little more tolerable.

Naomi starts to walk towards us but Katie's harsh tone stops her in her tracks more effectively than a brick wall would have, "She's fine. We'll be at the flat."

I let Katie usher me through the door as I feebly try to suppress the thoughts of Naomi comforting me.

.

* * *

.

I protected her when it was unnecessary, but when she needed me I wasn't there.

Effy puts her hands on my shoulders and guides me back towards the wall, "Sit." She pushes down on my shoulders until I slide down. "Relax. We'll go up in ten minutes."

I've been a fucking wreck since Katie guided Emily out of the pub. Effy is making me wait an hour before going back into the flat, so I've been pacing around the lobby trying to calm down.

Effy sits against the wall next to me, "She's fine, she just got freaked out."

"I know."

It kills me to not know what exactly made her lose it. But it hurts more to know that Emily is hurting and I'm not the one who can comfort her. This is the first time I've seen her get emotional and it tore me up inside, knowing that I'm not the one she goes to.

Seeing her so close to death was terrifying, she's lucky to be alive. The knife must have directly hit an artery, otherwise it wouldn't have been weak enough for Emily to kick it away from her. The fact that I wasn't there to save her is eating away at me. I protected her on the street when she didn't need it, my instinct kicked in when I saw the zombie in the street. It was easy; protect Emily, kill him. But in the pub I wasn't there to protect her, she could have been killed behind me and I wouldn't even have been turned around to stop it.

"It drives me crazy that I can't help her."

"Talk to her when we go up. Maybe you can."

We've been getting closer lately, but I don't know if trying to comfort her would be over stepping a boundary. I don't want to make her uncomfortable when she's hurting so much. But I think of her as a friend, so hopefully she'll let me in and be comfortable enough to tell me what exactly sent her into freak out mode.

"Let's go."

I pop off the ground and bolt for the stairs as soon as she says the word. When I get into the flat I search the room frantically and find Katie on the couch.

"How is she?"

"She's okay."

"What was wrong?"

"It just…reminded her of something, something we've both been trying hard to forget."

"Is she in your room?"

"Yeah, I don't know if she'll want to talk though, she hates getting emotional like this. It makes her feel weak."

I nod and make my way down the hall towards the Fitch room. The door is cracked slightly and I take a breath before pushing it open fully. Emily is laying on the bed with her back to me, her body slowly rising and falling with each breath.

The door creaks and she turns towards me, "Katie I told you I'm fine—oh…Naomi."

Shit, what the fuck am I doing? I should have waited for her to come out.

"Hi…mind if I come in?"

"Yeah, sure." She sits up and wipes her eyes.

I sit on the edge of the bed, looking over my shoulder at her, "I wanted to check on you, make sure you're okay."

"I don't really know how I am. I feel like I did when this all started."

My hand rests on her knee without my permission, "You can tell me…if you want to talk about it."

I try to convey everything I'm feeling through my eyes, how I'm dying to know everything about her and comfort her, so if she wants to talk, I'll listen for hours. I look her right in the eye and appreciate the fact that her bruises are nearly gone. When I first met her I never thought I'd see something more beautiful, but I'm learning that a banged-up Emily has nothing on her usual self.

She tears her eyes away from mine and lays on her back on the far side of the bed, staring at the ceiling. It feels strange to be looking down at her when she's feeling so weak, so I lay down next to her, keeping as much space between us as possible.

"Katie and me, we had to…" Her voice trails off and she sighs heavily.

"You don't have to tell me if it's too hard."

"No, I want you to know." She takes a deep breath before continuing.

"Katie and me had to kill our parents."

I stop breathing for a second and turn to look at her face. She's breathing heavily and still staring at the ceiling, tears welling up in her eyes. She continues talking before I have a chance to even attempt to formulate a sentence.

"I was out with Katie and our brother—"

"You had a brother?"

"Yeah, James." A smile plays at her lips for a second, "He was a little fucker most of the time, but he was a good kid. He died a few weeks ago."

"Was he turned?"

"No, I don't know if I could have handled that after my parents…" I don't want to push her, so I wait quietly for her to talk again. After a minute she takes another deep breath and continues, "Katie and me were making dinner, we thought our parents were out. Turns out they were attacked and were upstairs when it got to them and they turned, then came down and attacked us. I had to kill my mum with a knife. Her blood was all over me, just…everywhere." The tears start falling down the side of her face onto the pillow, "I've been trying so hard to not think about that, but killing that lady today was so similar and fucked everything up. It took so long to get back to being me afterwards, and it's like it happened all over today and I don't know what to do."

Her hand is laying on the bed between us and I scoot slightly closer to her and intertwine my fingers with hers. I don't care if it's too forward, I can't lay here next to her and do nothing while she pours her heart out. Everything that I've been through seems extremely insignificant now, I can't imagine what it would have been like to have to kill my own mother.

"I told myself that dwelling on the past and mourning them won't bring them back, and it won't make anything easier. But now I can't think of anything else."

"It's okay to remember. Getting emotional doesn't make you weak."

Her grip tightens on my hand at my words and her tears come harder. She closes her eyes tightly for a second before turning onto her side towards me and resting her face against my shoulder. I don't know how she'll react to my next move, but I can't stop myself from doing it. I let go of her hand and bring my arm up around her head.

"Come here."

She looks at me for a second, clearly confused, but then catches on to what I'm saying and cuddles into me fully. I wrap her up in my arms and let her cry into my chest, doing my best to calm her. She eventually is able to relax and falls asleep, and I let myself drift off as well, with her not only filling my dreams, but my arms as well


	9. Mistakes

**Aren't you guys so excited for fall? I am. It's already getting chilly here in Michigan and making me all nostalgic and stuff, fall does that to me. I'm so excited to post this chapter, I know you guys will love it. Thank you again for reviewing and I'd love for you to do it again :)**

**Chapter 9 - Mistakes**

Emily hasn't been herself since the incident in the pub. Not that I blame her, she's lucky to be alive after that, and I can't even imagine the horror of the memories it resurfaced. That night, when I woke up a few hours later with her clinging to my shirt, I slipped out quietly to let her sleep in peace, I figured Katie would want her room back soon. I didn't see her again that night, and when she emerged yesterday morning she was clearly still struggling with it. She was better, but still not the Emily that I've come to know. They stayed home when Effy and I went out yesterday, I'm surprised they came out with us today.

I glance at Emily in the rearview mirror. At how her hair is being kept at bay from her face by the wind as she looks out the window. Her features are painfully blank, it's obvious she's miles away, probably missing her old life. Yesterday I did anything I could to put a smile on her face. I know I won't be able to truly make her feel better, only she can do that, but it never hurts to try.

By the end of last night I was worried that it was too much, that it was becoming obvious that I like her and I thought she would push me away…but she didn't.

I told myself to not look into it too much, but I couldn't help myself. I was practically acting like a worried girlfriend and she didn't even flinch. I almost kissed her last night when we were the only two still up watching a movie and she hugged and thanked me for letting her cry all over me the night before…but I didn't.

Instead I stumbled over my words, bid her goodnight, and watched her walk away from me. A zombie takeover is great for improving cardio and survival skills, but no so much for social skills. The twins have been the best thing that have happened to us in a while; having new people around has brought us back to life in a way, and I don't want to throw off the delicate balance of our relationship. I figure I'm bound to get confirmation of her heterosexuality eventually. Then I'll know for sure that there is no possibility of having something more with her and can settle for being the best friend she's ever had.

We're on our way home right now after a long day out of the flat. I wanted to do something fun today, something we don't get to do every day, but there really isn't much fun to have that wouldn't be too dangerous. I assume Emily doesn't want to do anything risky after being a poorly-aimed stab away from death.

But for the moment, I think I can settle for making her laugh. I take a quick peak at Emily and Effy to make sure my intended victim will be the only one before speeding up towards my next turn. Curses and gasps of surprise fill the car as I whip the wheel around, making the tires screech and the car practically drift around the corner.

As I suspected, Katie wasn't wearing her seatbelt and is now clambering out of Emily's lap.

"Naomi! What the fuck!" She punches me in the arm on the way back to her seat.

"What did I tell you about wearing your seatbelt?"

"Jesus fuck why do we let her drive? She's fucking insane!"

I catch Emily's eye in the mirror and her smile matches my own.

Katie glares at Emily and Effy as they try not to laugh, "It's not fucking funny! I could have gone through the windshield!"

I tap the brakes, nothing too hard, just hard enough to make her surge forward slightly. Her hands fly out and she steadies herself on my seat.

"No, something like _that_ would have taken you through the windshield."

Emily loses the battle and starts laughing. Success.

"You're all fucking tossers. She's trying to kill me and you're both laughing." She huffs back into her seat and begrudgingly clicks her seatbelt on.

"I'm just trying to protect you, Katie."

"Yeah well you can fuck off now."

A few minutes later Effy puts her hand out onto my arm, "Pull over."

"What, why?"

"Just pull over."

I pull the car to the side of the road.

"What's going on? Are you okay?"

Effy smiles at me, "Come on." She unbuckles herself and opens the door.

I look around wildly, "Effy where the fuck are you going?"

"We've had a long day, it's hot out, we need to relax. Come on, just trust me." She leans into the car and eyes flick between the three of us, waiting. I look back to see the twins glance at each other, shrug, and follow Effy's lead.

I get out of the car and walk around it towards the others, "What are we doing?

"Relax, we've plenty of ammo, we'll be fine."

Emily turns around to face me, raises her eyebrow in a challenge, "You scared?"

I guess I was wrong about the whole 'Emily probably won't want to take risks' thing. I walk after them, grumbling about how I'm not scared, I just want to know where the fuck we're going. Effy leads us through the doors of a fancy hotel into the dimly lit lobby.

"What the fuck are we going to do in here?"

Effy looks around and decides which direction she wants to go in before answering, "I feel like swimming." Katie laughs and happily follows her, luckily Emily shares my hesitance.

"You want to go _swimming_? In a pool that hasn't been kept up in months? It'll be disgusting."

Effy calls over her shoulder, "I think it's worth a glance at least."

"This is bloody ridiculous."

Emily grabs my hand and pulls me along, "Let's watch them be disappointed."

We follow them down the hall, but I stop with Emily when she gets distracted by something. I follow her gaze through the translucent doors and try to make out what's outside through the glare in the glass.

She smiles, "Perfect."

I let her pull me through the door and we step into an elaborately decorated courtyard. There's a small fountain in the middle, water still flowing peacefully through it, there's even soft music playing in the background. I watch as Emily saunters over to the fountain and sits on the edge, quietly toying with the water with her fingers.

She looks around and then slowly back to me, "I can't believe it's all still working."

"Yeah...someone must have just been here and turned everything back on."

She nods and looks around again, this time closing her eyes and tilting her head back, letting the sunlight warm her face. I stop myself from staring at her neck and force myself to think of something besides kissing it. An idea hits me in my attempts to avoid sexy thoughts, and I walk over to her. I wait for her to open her eyes and see me before I extend my hand out to her.

"May I have this dance?" So what if my avoidance of inappropriate thoughts led me to finding a more innocent way of touching her? Friends are allowed to dance with each other.

She smiles and takes my hand, "You may..."

I pull her close to me, our bodies almost touching, but at a respectable distance. We inevitably end up closer as I twirl her around lazily, and we laugh as we clumsily collide with one another.

"We're horrible."

"I'm doing just fine, you obviously don't know how to follow my lead." She laughs again and I tighten my grip around her waist, "You ready?"

She eyes me suspiciously, "For what?"

"The dip, of course."

"No!" She tries to back away from me but I hold her in place, she laughs as she fights against me, "You're going to drop me!"

"Oh you'll be fine, we have to do it, it's a classic move."

We laugh and struggle for a few more seconds until the door behind us opens and Katie and Effy run into the courtyard.

"Time to go!"

We both pull our guns from their place in our pants and automatically run after them. They wouldn't be joking about this, if they're running, there's a reason for it.

"There were zombies in the pool?"

"No, the basement."

"What the fuck were you doing in the basement?!"

My question goes unanswered as we run through the door on the other side of the courtyard, into an unknown part of the building. I look back as we're going through and see an alarming amount of zombies scrambling to get through the other door, I lose count at seven. Someone probably trapped them down there on purpose.

I doubt any of us know how to get back to the front entrance, and none of us are willing to try. We run randomly through any hallway we come across, and we end up in the hotel restaurant, then through the kitchens and out a back door. We maneuver through the alleys until we get out to a street.

"Which way is the car?" I'm all turned around and have no idea how to quickly get back to the front of the hotel.

"Fuck the car, flat is this way." We all follow Effy, if anyone can guide us home, it's her. She's been studying those maps intensely for the past week. I know the flat isn't too far, it won't be long before we get there.

The four of us tear down the streets and through alleys, trying to make as many turns as we can to confuse our pursuers. Katie and me are behind the other two, so we turn and take a shot whenever the opportunity arises, we're probably not hitting anything, but it's worth the try. We manage to get a decent amount of distance from them, enough to pop into a building without them seeing to hopefully give us a chance to evade them.

My eyes are sizing up the buildings around us, assessing them for hiding potential. But more importantly, my eyes are _not_ on Katie right before we round a corner and she turns to shoot. Without really looking where I'm going, I make a sudden move to avoid tripping over a curb. My eyes lock with hers just as I move and she pulls the trigger with a look of pure terror on her face. The kind of terror that exists in the second you know something horrible is about to happen, but you have no power to stop it, and are forced to sit idly by and watch it happen.

For a split second I let myself believe that she missed me. She stops running just as I do, looking from me to the gun in her hand, disgusted, like she's asking it how it could betray her like that.

Then the burning starts. It starts in the middle of my left upper arm and slowly spreads before bursting into fireworks of pain.

"Fuck!"

I can feel the warm wetness of blood soaking my arm. I don't want to look down at it, I don't need confirmation of what I already know is happening. Seeing it would only make me panic.

Effy and Emily stopped when I cried out in pain, and are now looking at me with realization dawning on their faces. Effy takes off her sweater as she quickly closes the small distance between us and balls it up, "Put pressure on it, can you run?"

I nod and my legs start moving on autopilot. I don't know how they're working, I feel like I'm floating above them as they sprint below me. I yell out in pain again as I press the fabric to my arm and do my best to keep the pressure on it and keep my eyes dry so I can see where I'm going.

I have no idea how close the zombies got to us, or even where we are anymore. I keep my eyes trained on the back of Effy's head, focusing on moving, trying not to think of the words bullet, bleeding, and pain. All I know is that we have to get back to the flat, then I can worry about that.

We finally turn onto a street that I recognize as our own, only a few more blocks. By the time we reach the building I can hardly breathe, the pain is starting to overwhelm me.

Effy throws the door open but Emily stops, blocking the way, "We can't go in, they've seen us, they'll follow."

I chance a look back and sure enough our attackers have just turned onto our street where we had. Effy ignores Emily completely and literally pushes us into the lobby.

"We've got about thirty seconds. Katie, lock the doors and block them as best as you can. Emily, use the lift, get her upstairs."

Emily grabs my good hand and pulls me to the far side of the lobby as Effy dashes behind the reception desk. I try to stop Emily from pulling me, but her grip is solid. My voice is weak and broken when I finally figure out how to form words.

"No, we can't leave, we have to help them."

The lift dings when she presses the call button and the door opens almost immediately, "You're hurt Naomi, we have to help you."

From somewhere deep within me I find the strength to break away from her and not let her pull me through the doors.

"We can't leave them!" My voice is a little stronger now, but mostly frantic. I know Emily doesn't want to leave them either.

Her eyes flicker between my injured arm and her sister doing her best to barricade the door. But the choice is made for us by Effy, who pushes us through the doors of the lift.

"Are you sure?" Effy drops the towels and medical supplies that she retrieved from their hiding spot to the floor and pushes the '8' button on the wall.

Her eyes lock onto Emily as she steps backwards out of the lift, "I'll keep her safe. Fix her."

The doors close as she runs across the lobby to help Katie. Only a few seconds later I hear the muffled sound of glass breaking and gun shots. It pulls my heart from my chest and my legs finally break down. I fall back against the wall and slide to the floor. All attempts to control my breathing and wildly beating heart are useless.

"Emily…can't leave. They'll die." The words barely make it out of my mouth, I can hardly breathe, let alone form sentences. I lay my head against the wall of the lift, suddenly feeling very woozy.

Emily opens our makeshift first aid kit and starts rifling through the contents, "They know what they're doing, they'll be fine. How are you doing?"

"Dunno…we have to go back." She starts to push the sleeve of my shirt up but I feebly smack her hands away. "We have to go…"

She grabs my resisting hand, "Naomi." My arm barely moves when I try to pull away from her, "Naomi!" Warm hands cup my face and I immediately stop fighting when she forces me to look into her eyes. The deepness in them calms me, giving me something to focus on besides everything that is wrong at the moment.

"They'll be okay, you'll be okay. Trust me." She pushes the hair off my forehead and her eyes look over my whole face as she wipes away a few tears.

My heart stops when I realize that the space between us is shrinking. Her eyes are on my lips as she slowly, seemingly in slow motion, leans closer to me. Her lips make contact with my own for a long, steady kiss and my heart kicks back into gear with a vengeance. The pain in my arm is still there, but now it's a distant thought. The feeling of her lips against mine and all of the possibilities that it uncovers is enough to trump any pain. It can hurt all it wants, I don't give a shit. Someone could come by and chop my whole arm off and the only reason I'd miss it is because that's one less hand to tangle in her hair the next time we kiss. And I know there will be a next time because I will make fucking sure of it.

She pulls away and looks at me seriously, "Everything will be okay, I promise." She releases my face and turns her attention back to my wound.

I try to nod but my head isn't listening to me, it's busy trying to sort out everything that's going on. The pain, the blood, the zombies downstairs, the uncertainty of the safety of Effy and Katie, and the fact that Emily Fitch just kissed me. Emily Fitch kissed me.

My body feels heavy, the weight of all that information weighing down on me, and I can feel my eyes closing. I fight against the dark, partly because I don't know how long I'll be out, but mostly because I want to stay awake and think about Emily. Emily Fitch and her lips and her smile and her eyes and her…

.

* * *

.

I watch as Naomi's eyes struggle to stay open and then her head lolls to the side in defeat.

"Shit. Naomi! Naomi!" I give her a few light slaps to the face but she doesn't stir. "Fuck…" Everything's fine, she's lost quite a bit of blood, it's completely normal to pass out. On top of that she's worrying about Effy and Katie, so this is normal…I think.

I cut the sleeve off of her shirt. I've never treated a bullet wound before, what the fuck do I do? There's blood all over her arm but the flow seems to be slowing down. The lift doors open behind me and I can hear the gunshots again. My heart starts beating faster when the reality of what's happening downstairs hits me full force again. Katie could be dead right now. No, don't think about that, focus on this, they'll be fine.

Blood. Bleeding. Make that stop.

I put the box of supplies behind me to stop the doors from closing and tie a towel as tight as I can around her shoulder. I move her arm as little as possible as I clean some of the blood away from the repulsive wound. Luckily it grazed her arm so it had no contact with bones, but it left a giant, open gash in its wake. I take a deep breath and fight against the nausea brewing within me. I don't have a problem seeing bloody things, but having to prod at them and stitch them back together is an entirely different story.

How the hell do I clean this thing out enough so I can stitch it up? Fuck, I need Katie, she's better at this. I've seen her put stitches in and I've read how to do it, even practiced on random things. It seems simple in theory, but actually doing it is different, and my mind is too full to even remember half the theory anyway.

I clean it out as best as I can and get the needle ready, I hope I don't fuck this up. I start stitching and try to not think about how this is likely to get infected, or how it sounds as if the gunshots are getting louder.

My hands freeze when I'm halfway done and I hear the door to the staircase open. My breathing quickens its pace. I have no idea who's going to come through that door and what kind of shape they'll be in. Footsteps walk up behind me, a gun falls to the floor, then there's a hand on my shoulder, gently pulling me away as another takes the forceps from my hand.

"When did she pass out?" Effy's voice is as calm as usual, and it relaxes me instantly, knowing that she's still calm and everything is okay.

"Right after…" I kissed her. Fuck. "I mean right before we got to the top floor." Effy checks Naomi's pulse and feels her forehead before continuing my stitch job.

My eyes are watering before I even turn around fully to wrap Katie in my arms, "Are you okay?" I release her and look her over, messing with her clothes to make sure the blood on them isn't her own.

She nods, "For the most part." Her breathing is still labored from whatever the fuck happened downstairs.

We both sit on the floor opposite the lift and watch Effy finish Naomi up, my thoughts immediately landing on the fact that I kissed her. She looked so scared and worried, I just wanted to relax her, and that was the first thing I thought of. In retrospect, kissing a potentially straight girl without warning probably isn't much of a relaxant. But she did pass out only seconds later, so I'm hoping she won't even remember it.

When Effy finishes we awkwardly carry her into the flat and lay her on the couch. I want to get up and take a shower, wash her blood off of me, but I can't bring myself to leave her. Every second that she doesn't wake up sends me further into panic mode. I thought she would have woken up during the stitching because of the pain, or as we struggled to carry her into the flat, but she didn't.

Effy is sitting on the floor next to the couch, occasionally checking her breathing and pulse. It's taking every ounce of control I have to stay seated and not check it for myself, just to be sure.

As I sit and watch her still form, slowly losing control of my emotions, anger begins to take over. Naomi's been shot, there's a good chance that it's going to get infected, she's lost a lot of blood, and now she's not waking up. All of this was completely preventable. This shouldn't have happened. And it was Katie who did it.

"How the fuck did this happen?"

My voice cuts through the air. We've all been on edge, quietly sitting here for the last ten minutes. Katie looks up and meets my eyes, surprised by my harsh tone.

"It was bad timing. I wasn't expecting her to move and she wasn't expecting me to shoot."

"You fucking shot her Katie." I get up from my seated position, I feel like my emotions are running too high to be contained to a chair. "When someone moves in front of your gun, you're supposed to not pull the fucking trigger!"

Her face contorts into something resembling disgust as she stands up to match my level, "I hope you're not implying that I could have stopped this from happening. She moved as I was shooting, neither of us could stop it."

"What if you had the shotgun? You would have blown her _fucking arm off! _Or killed her!" I push her backwards as I yell, my voice getting louder without my permission. She doesn't fight back, just looks at me, appalled. "Why were you even shooting? We were too far away for any of us to get a good shot off, especially you!"

"Emily, stop."

I ignore Effy's quiet but commanding words and push her again, "None of this should have happened, and it's your fucking fault!"

Once again Effy's hand is on my shoulder, but this time she whips me around and pushes me away from the situation.

"Stop. Go calm down."

I look to Katie and see the hurt on her face. There are tears building up in her eyes, tears that I caused because I'm scared and lost my temper and took it out on the one person that has always been there for me.

"I'm…I'm sorry." Effy pulls Katie into a hug and I walk past them towards the bedroom.

The tears fall freely as I pace around my room. What the fuck am I doing? Naomi hasn't even been out for an hour yet and I lost it, she's probably going to be fine. Everything seems to be going to shit these past few days, it all came to a peak and I couldn't stop myself from losing control.

I was just starting to feel a little better since I almost got fucking killed, and now Naomi is injured and I've gone and bitched at Katie for no good reason. On top of all that, the fact that I kissed Naomi is lurking in the back of my mind, and the wonder if she forgot it or how she'll react if she remembers. I am the stupidest fucking person on the planet for so many reasons.

Eventually I calm down enough to lay down, and it's less than an hour before Katie comes into the room. She avoids my eyes as she walks over to me and sits on the edge of the bed. I prepare myself for an explosion.

"Naomi is awake."

"Good."

"I thought you'd want to know."

"I do, thanks." Her relaxed tone unnerves me. It's not until I sit up and position myself next to her that I see she is only quiet because she is upset.

"I'm sorry Katie, I didn't mean it. I know it wouldn't have happened if you had any control over it, I was scared...I _am_ scared. It feels like everything is going wrong and I panicked. And now I feel like shit. I yelled at you after you probably almost died downstairs and you've always been there for me, you don't deserve that. I'm a piece of shit."

"It's okay Emily. You were scared, I know."

She tries to grab my hand but I pull away from her and stand up from the bed completely, "No…it's not okay." I wasn't only expecting her to be angry with me, but I want her to be. "Be mad! Fucking yell at me! Slap me!"

"Sit down, Emily."

"No! Stop being so nice! I don't deserve it…"

She looks at me like I'm a child throwing a temper tantrum, and I suddenly feel exactly like one.

"You done?"

I sit back on the bed, defeated, "Yes."

"You don't deserve to be yelled at, Emily, and you're not a piece of shit. You have Effy to thank though, I was _really _pissed and was going to come in here and bitch you out, but she didn't let me, she made me relax first. Then I thought about it…if the situation were different, say it was Effy who shot me, I'd fucking hope you'd bitch her out for me."

"But it wasn't you, it was Naomi."

"It was someone that you care about who got hurt, same thing."

"You're my sister, she's just…someone we know."

She scoffs, "I know you care about her, don't sit there and pretend that you don't want her."

Shit. Busted. I'm not sure why I never told Katie how I feel about Naomi, I decided almost right away it was something I should keep to myself. I guess I didn't want to make it into a big deal, if I didn't vocalize my feelings to anyone it would seem less real, easier to deal with.

"You think I don't know you well enough to know when you have a crush? Please."

"I know nothing is going to happen with it so I wanted to keep it quiet." Katie laughs, a loud, almost bellowing laugh. "What's so funny?"

Katie shakes her head, "Nothing, don't worry about it." She stands up and looks down at me, "I forgive you for being a total bitch. But if you yell at me because of her again, I'll fucking destroy you."

.

Naomi was back to sleep on the couch by the time I took a shower and emerged from my room. I didn't have a chance the rest of the night to find out if she remembered what I did, and the potential confrontation between us is keeping me awake. I've been trying to come up with excuses, but turns out there aren't many reasons to be kissing someone other than "I'd like to have sex with you."

A quiet, frustrated voice makes its way through the slightly open door. It must be Naomi. As much as I don't want to confront her, she doesn't sound very happy and as far as I know, she's out on in the living room alone. I make my way through the hall and find her sitting on the couch, struggling to open a bottle of pills.

"Fucking child-proof stupid fucking lids…"

I walk around the couch into her view and she jumps slightly when she sees me.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like shit. It hurts like hell and I have no fucking grip, so I can't get this fucking bottle open. Now my head hurts as well and we don't have anything stronger than this shit."

I almost laugh at her adorably flustered state, but I don't think that will do much to improve her mood.

"Give it here…" I open the bottle and hand her a couple pills and the glass of water that Effy left on the table.

"Thanks…" I'm about to ask her if she needs anything else and head back to bed, but she beats me to it.

"This is bleeding through. Think you could change it for me? It's tough to do with one hand."

I wish I could say no so badly so I can delay this conversation, but I know I will never be able to turn down a favor she asks me with that hopeful look on her face.

"Yeah, of course."

I gather up what I'll need and take a seat on the couch next to her. Moving her arm as little as possible, I start to unwrap the bandage.

"You should have been here to see Katie apologize, it was obviously hard for her to get through that."

I smile at the thought, it's not every day you see Katie Fitch apologizing, "You two are okay though? No hard feelings?"

I start cleaning the dried blood around the wound.

"We're good. It was probably mostly my fault, wasn't paying attention properly. We both made our apologies." It's funny how they'll bicker about anything, but when something actually happens between them, they act mature for once. I think that's a good sign that they don't hate each other as much as they act like they do.

"Thanks for stitching me up."

"You should be thanking me for not throwing up on you. It was disgusting."

She smiles, "Sorry about that." She peaks at the wound before I start bandaging it up, "It looks good. You should have been a doctor."

"No Effy did most of it, I'm rubbish at it. Katie's always been better."

"Maybe…but you'd be famous for your bedside manner."

My hands freeze as I wrap up her arm, my heartbeat quickens. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. Fuck.

"You remember?"

I force my hands to start moving again and keep my eyes on what I'm doing, "I remember."

It's quiet for the next few seconds as I finish. I stand up quickly as soon as I'm done, avoiding her eyes and resisting the urge to run back to my bed and cocoon myself there forever.

"I'm really sorry. It just kind of happened. Just try to forget it, please."

I turn and walk away but she stands, "Wait, Emily, don't leave."

She grabs my arm, effectively stopping my escape, "I'm sorry, don't freak out, I don't know why I did that, I'm sorry.

"Stop talking." I finally bring my eyes up to meet hers, and it's not what I expect. She's smiling, smiling at me like I just told her she's getting a puppy for her next birthday.

She pulls me closer, releases my arm and moves her hand to my neck, "I think you're lying."

Her voice is quiet and deeper than usual, I've never heard it like that, I think it's my new favorite sound. I take in her slightly smug facial expression, her eyes staring hungrily into my own, and it clicks. The fault lines lock into place and the earthquake of the last few days finally settles.

"I think you knew exactly what you were doing."

I nod, or at least I try to nod, I'm not sure if the effort actually makes my head move. She leans in quickly and captures my lips. Even though our kiss in the lift was simple and surrounded by chaos, it was still lovely, but this…this is perfect. I melt into her body as our lips move together. I never thought I'd kiss anyone ever again, let alone someone so beautiful and fucking amazing. She begs for entrance into my mouth and I gladly let her in, tasting her on my tongue for the first time as my hands explore her and pull her closer.

It's by far the sweetest and sexiest kiss I've ever experienced. I feel lust taking me over, threatening to overwhelm me and make me lose control in the best way possible. I bunch the front of her shirt with my hands and push her away, but hold on to her at the same time. She smiles shyly, nervously. I take a few breaths, stopping myself from pulling her right back into me.

"You're gay." It's not a question, more of a hope that I'm just now discovering is true.

She bites her lip, nods, "I've wanted to kiss you since I first met you."

My hands quiver, almost allowing myself to continue this. The realization that I am going to have sex with Naomi Campbell sends shockwaves through me. It makes me want to throw her into that third bedroom and have my way with her. But this isn't the right time. She just got shot and can hardly move her arm, not to mention I'm sure Katie and Effy don't want to listen to that.

But all of that is okay, because we have all the time in the world. All we have is time. And I plan on spending a lot of time on this particular activity.

"Holding a gun to my head wasn't the best pick-up line."

She laughs, "It was a long term plan. Looks like it was successful."

I realize I'm still gripping her shirt and release it quickly. I smooth out the wrinkles I made, watching my hands as they linger after the job is done.

"You're hurt, they could wake up, we shouldn't do this now."

She nods, "I know."

I let my hands drop to my sides, "You should go back to sleep, you need your rest. Are you okay? Do you need anything else?"

Her smile grows bigger, she shakes her head, "Nope, that's all I needed."

I walk backwardswalk towards the hall, "Well then...goodnight Naomi."

"Goodnight Emily."


	10. Pills and Persistence

**For my Conviction readers, the next chapter is on its way! I'm splitting the party scenes into two chapters since I have a skeleton of the whole thing and it's already 4k words. I'm working on it though and part 1 should be relatively soon.**

**Katie's pov for the first time in the second part of this chapter, excited?**

**Chapter 10 - Pills and Persistence**

_Fucking hell_…I can't stop rolling over in my sleep and onto my arm, sending a sting of pain through me and waking me up. My Emily-filled dreams are consistently interrupted and replaced with this lingering headache until I can get myself back to sleep. I suppose I'll just get up since I'm still wearing the dirty, blood-stained clothes from yesterday and they don't exactly smell welcoming, I need a shower.

Effy comes in as I'm gathering a change of clothes, "How are you feeling?"

"Horrible."

"Why do you look so pleased with yourself then?" I watch as Effy's face turns from confused to amused, "Oh…so you found out then?"

"Found out what?"

"That Emily's a lesbian."

I nearly drop the bundle of clothes in my hand, "What? _You knew_?!"

She shrugs, "Only for a few days. Did you kiss her?"

"You've known for _days? _What the fuck Effy don't you think that's something I'd like to be filled in on? How do you even know?"

"What the fuck do you think me and Katie talk about all day?"

"Why didn't you say something?"

"We would have told you _eventually_, but we figured it'd be more fun to watch you two figure it out for yourselves."

"I really fucking hate you right now."

"You'll get over it. So…did you kiss her?" I turn back to the wardrobe and continue searching for clothes to hide my smile.

"Yes."

I feel my anger deflate at the memory of kissing Emily, and I remember that Emily wouldn't even be here if Effy hadn't made me feel like an idiot when she was about to leave.

"Fucking finally, took you…" I drop the clothes and hug her tightly, "…long enough." It takes her a second to respond and hug me back, "Not that this isn't lovely, but what's it for exactly?"

"Thanks Effy."

"For…?"

"For not letting me be myself, for not letting her leave."

She laughs and squeezes me tighter for a second before releasing me, "Someone had to. So you're not freaking out then?"

"I don't know, it's a bit overwhelming. But I think it'll be good."

No matter if I like it or not, nothing will ever be the same in this place, everything has changed. Life is different now, I don't have time to be in a panic over Emily. Now that I know I have a chance with her, I have to take it, and my excitement is much more prominent than my nerves.

"It will be good, so don't fuck it up."

"Fuck off, I won't…oh shit" My legs suddenly feel weak and for a second I feel like I'm going to pass out, I put my hand on the wall to steady myself.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, just got dizzy for a second. I slept for fucking hours but I still feel exhausted."

"It's probably from the blood loss, go back to bed. What are you doing up anyway?"

"I need a shower."

"Good luck," She gestures to my arm, "You can't get that wet." Fuck that's right, I'm not going to be able to take a proper shower for a while. "Worry about that later, go back to sleep. Change your clothes though, they're disgusting."

After a couple minutes of wincing and groaning trying to wrestle the shirt off my body without being able to raise my arm very high, Effy helps me out of it and hands me a flannel shirt.

"Stick to things that button or zip so I don't have to help you change every day. And no I'm not helping you shower, you can ask Emily for that."

"Not a bad idea."

"Thought you'd like it."

Effy gets me more pills and water before ushering me back to bed, ignoring my protests that I am perfectly capable of doing these things myself and don't need to be taken care of.

.

When I wake up a few hours later I roll out of bed almost immediately. I've been laying around so much that I can hardly get comfortable anymore, I need to get up and do something. I leave my room and hear music coming from the living room before shutting myself in the bathroom to clean up a bit. When I make it out there I find Emily humming along to the music as she adjusts the position of a sofa.

I get so distracted by watching Emily battle with the furniture that it takes a minute for me to notice the unfamiliar things in the room. The music is coming from a record player I've never seen before, Emily has moved everything around to make room for another sofa, and there are piles of new books and movies stacked next to the bookshelf.

The music isn't loud, but it's still pounding into my head with every beat, bothering me enough to make me turn the volume down and reveal my presence. Emily turns and smiles brightly at me.

"Felt like redecorating?"

She ignores me and studies me carefully as she steps closer, like she'll be able to see how much pain I'm in if she looks hard enough.

"How are you feeling?"

"Shitty."

She takes another step so she's close enough that my thoughts are consumed by her proximity and what I'd like to do with her. Her obvious concern is adorable and I want to kiss the worry off her face, but I hesitate. Last night I was so sure of myself, but it feels different now, like that was all a dream, too good to be true. I can't be allowed to kiss this girl whenever I want to, can I?

"Did the music wake you up?"

I shake my head, "Couldn't even hear it in my room. Where are our other halves?"

"They went to take care of the bodies downstairs and get the car. I was told to stay here with you." This is the first time we've been truly alone together. _Relax…don't jump her bones, be cool._

I have to clear my throat before I can start talking again, "Where'd all this shit come from?"

"Mostly 803 and 807."

"Weren't all the doors locked on this floor?"

She smirks, "They were...but I managed to get in."

"You pick the locks?"

"I tried to, but that didn't work, so I went for a more…forceful approach."

"Forceful? You _beat_ the doors down?"

She smiles and gestures for me to follow her into the kitchen, "I found a hammer…all you have to do is weaken the wood around the handle, give it a few kicks and you're in."

The image of little Emily kicking down doors brings a smile to my face, "What if there were people living in there?"

She shrugs, "Don't worry, I knocked first."

I laugh, "You're ridiculous. You know there are plenty of unlocked flats in the building you could have looted."

She starts filling a glass of water, "I know, and I did, but they didn't have what I was looking for, so I had to get into the locked ones as well."

"What were looking for?"

She smiles, takes a sip of the water and hands me the glass. Then grabs a bottle of prescription pills off the counter and hands me a couple.

"These. It's vicodin, figured someone in this building had to have something stronger for you."

"You spent your morning busting down doors trying to find me painkillers?" She nods.

Who cares if last night was a dream or not, this girl fucking deserves a kiss. I take the pills slowly, watch her watching me over the rim of the glass. Her eyes widen for a second when I step in front of her, my hands on the counter on either side of her, nearly pinning her against it.

"How can I thank you properly?"

"I had something in mind…" Her voice is huskier than usual, it reminds me of last night and makes me take a shaky breath in. She grips my shirt and tugs lightly, so there's no longer any space between us, and kisses me urgently.

Her hands move to hips, pulling me as close as possible. My skin ignites, fully aware of every atom that is pressed against her. She kisses and touches me like it's the only thing she knows how to do, her want rivals mine and spurs me on.

I untangle a hand from her hair, let it trace slowly down her front until it meets the strip of skin below her shirt. The feel of bare skin only makes me crave more of it, so I let my hand slip underneath her top and explore her torso for the first time. My mind is screaming at me to remove the shirt completely, but I don't want to push too far, I don't know how fast she wants this to go.

A minute later my question is answered as her lips leave mine, trail down my neck, and she starts unbuttoning my shirt and pulling it to the side so she can kiss my chest. It hits me that there is no one here to stop us, no interruptions, we have to get out of this fucking kitchen and into a bed…now.

I grab her neck, force her lips back up to mine and start walking us back through the kitchen. On the way out, my left arm slams against the doorframe, sending a jolt of pain through me and forcing me away from Emily's lips.

"Shit!"

"Fuck! I'm sorry! Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I wait a few seconds until the pain fades, "Yeah, I'm fine, not your fault, ran into the wall." I reach for her, trying to pull her back to me so we can continue right where we left off but she steps back.

"No..."

"What? Why not?"

"Because you'll hurt yourself, that wasn't even supposed to go that far, fuck…" She puts a hand to her face, silently scolds herself for getting carried away.

"Come back here, it's fine. Give it half an hour and I won't even be able to feel it."

"Exactly, if you can't feel anything then you won't know your restrictions and you'll make it worse."

"But…I..." I rack my brain but I don't have any other arguments to throw out, "I'm fine…"

She smiles and steps closer to me, places a single kiss right above my breast and then one on my neck. She kisses the side of my face and whispers in my ear, "Relax…" She redoes the few buttons she undid and then kisses my lips, nibbling softly on my lower lip before she pulls away. "We have all the time in the world." She takes a step back, relinquishing all contact with me, "I have to shower…wash the sweat off me. You…" She points a finger at me and raises a threatening eyebrow, "…stay out here."

She smiles one last time and walks down the hall, I watch her until the bedroom door closes.

"Well fuck…"

We've finally gotten our shit together and now I've got a fucking bullet wound, of course. I take a seat on our new couch, then spread out onto it when I discover how comfortable it is, no wonder she dragged it all the way in here. My feet tap impatiently against the cushions, begging me to get up and join Emily in the shower. But my mind throws up a thousand reasons not to and I stay put, deciding instead to turn the music off and pop in a movie so I'll at least have images to attempt to distract me from the ones in my mind.

A bit later I feel the pills start to kick in, and I finally relax fully, pain-free. A lazy smile tugs at my lips when Emily comes back out, but fades slightly when she heads for the kitchen instead of the spot next to me. She emerges a few minutes later with two steaming mugs of tea, smiling shyly at me. A glance at the television stops her before she sits down and she looks at me like I'm crazy.

"Shaun of the Dead? You're seriously watching a zombie movie right now?"

I laugh, realizing the absurdity of it, "I love this movie."

She sits next to me, close, but not touching. Since she moved in I've constantly been analyzing how close she is to me. Before I was constantly making sure we weren't too close, now I'm searching for reasons to figure out why we aren't closer.

"Can you imagine if they actually moved that slowly?"

I sigh sadly, "Life would be so great…" We both laugh at describing any life involving zombies as "great".

It's silent for a while, glances are stolen over sips of tea, until Emily smiles adoringly at me, "You are so stoned..."

"No I'm not!"

"You've hardly stopped giggling for the last ten minutes."

I want to retort but I know she's right, "You trying to get me high and take advantage of me?"

"Busted..."

I study her smile and remember I've hardly seen a real smile on her face in the past few days.

"It's nice to see you happy, you seem like yourself again."

She settles further into the back of the couch, turns her head to look at me, "Something happened that made me snap out of it and bring me back to the present." I bite my lip, trying to hold back the flirty responses to that. She suddenly repositions herself on the cushions, facing me and cradling her mug in her lap, "Tell me about your mum."

"What? Why?"

"I don't really know that much about you, not the _real_ stuff, you know? It was just you and your mum, right? Tell me about her."

I'd tell most people to fuck off, that it's none of their business. But her eyes are excited and burning into me, begging for an answer. It makes me happy that she wants this, to know me, not just to fuck me. I think about my mum and the first image that pops into my head is her dead body lying in her bed. But I push that aside, force myself to remember her eyes sparkling with life, and I smile.

"She was great…annoyed the piss out of me half the time, but we got along well for the most part. She was an environmentalist, wanted to save the world, be friends with everybody. She was a total cliché…but she was a nice cliché."

I tell her about how she died, how grateful I am that it was peaceful. As we talk we slowly move closer, until we're flush against each other, our feet up on the coffee table in front of us, our tea abandoned and getting cold. It's easy talking to Emily, easy to be honest with her, it's a strange feeling to be so comfortable with someone I haven't known very long.

She tells me about her family; her perv of a brother, how her mother was just beginning to accept her sexuality when this all started. The fleeting sadness in her eyes makes me grab her hand, bring it into my lap and trace my fingertips along the lines of her palm and her forearm. She smiles and leans into me, nuzzling her face into my shoulder and inhaling deeply.

She laughs out of nowhere, her voice is muffled by my shirt, "You know you were completely unintimidating the day we met."

"Bullshit! I had a gun to your head, how is that _not_ intimidating?"

"The gun may have been intimidating, but you weren't. You hardly even touched me when you made me walk around the car, you should have pushed me around a bit if you wanted to scare me."

I smile at the memory of seeing her for the first time, "You looked fragile, I didn't want to hurt you."

"It showed. I was sad you didn't tell me your name, I thought you were sweet."

"I thought you were beautiful." Fucking word vomit…

Emily scoffs, "I got beat up the day before, I was practically still bleeding."

I turn my head towards her and raise my shoulder slightly until she looks up to me, "It didn't matter. You're always stunning." She smiles, looks down at my hand, still busy memorizing hers, and intertwines our fingers. She kisses me softly, then watches her finger as it runs down the side of my face and over my lips. I think about how we ended up here, how close we were to never meeting at all. How we've been living in the same city our whole lives but never came across each other, what our first date would have been like if we could have had one.

"Where'd you come from?"

"I don't know, but I'm glad I'm here."

.

* * *

.

"Did Emily tell you?"

"That they kissed?" Effy nods, "Yep, she's such a fucking sap, you should have seen her face when she told me. She probably shat rainbows this morning."

Effy snorts in laughter and we drop the body we were carrying before heading back to our building for the next one. The whole building will reek if we don't get them out, so we're moving everything to the car park. My hands have been shaking the whole time we've been cleaning up, seeing the aftermath is bringing back the memories from yesterday. I don't even know why Effy chose me to stay and fight, Emily would have been a safer bet.

"I thought it would take them longer."

"I'm sure it would have if Naomi hadn't been injured."

"I think it's sweet, I'm happy for them."

"Yeah…me too."

I really am happy for them, but also extremely jealous. Of course the only people we befriend are two girls without a decent bloke in sight. I've been jealous of Emily for a while, ever since I found out I was incapable of getting pregnant and she's perfectly fine. Now she's found someone to fuck, so add that to the list of things she has and I don't. And to top it all off I've gone and shot her little girlfriend, making me look like a fucking idiot.

We reach the lobby and I bend down and grab another of the bodies by the ankles, but Effy doesn't follow suit. I look up to her, trying to figure out the reason for the hesitation, but she's just watching me.

"Are you okay?"

This girl can read me almost as good as Emily and we hardly know each other.

"Yes, fine. You gonna help me with this?"

"You're lying."

She's always so fucking persistent, I learned quickly that this isn't the girl to keep things from. But that doesn't mean I don't try.

I drop the feet and stand back up, "I'm not fucking lying."

She raises a skeptical eyebrow, "Out with it."

I'm not about to tell her about my jealousy, but I guess I can ask her what I've been wondering all morning.

"Why me? Why'd you tell me to stay and Emily to help Naomi, you know Emily is the better shot."

"It wasn't about you, it was about Emily. She would have been a mess, all worried about Naomi and not thinking properly. You seemed like the obvious choice, I didn't think for a second that you'd be incapable. You shouldn't feel bad about shooting her, shit happens."

"Getting shot doesn't just _happen_, Effy, I fucked up. I shouldn't even carry a fucking gun."

She eyes me seriously and then smiles unexpectedly, walks around the reception desk and starts searching through the drawers and shelves.

"What are you doing?"

She finds a marker and heads for the door to the stairs, ditching the rubber gloves she was wearing to protect her hands from any blood on the bodies. I quickly follow suit when she calls to me to follow her.

"Where are you going?"

I follow her to the first floor but she stops me when I walk through the door, "Wait here."

"What the fuck Effy?"

Without bothering to respond, she walks to the end of the corridor and starts drawing on the wall. I wait impatiently for her to finish her little art project and look over her shoulder at the circles on the wall as she walks back to me.

"Is that a target? Seriously?" She stands in front of me for a second with a stupid little grin on her face before reaching behind me and yanking the gun from my pants, "Jesus!"

"Yes, it's a target. I'm teaching you how to shoot."

I roll my eyes, "Emily's tried, I'm rubbish."

"You're not rubbish, you just haven't been taught properly."

"Bit cocky are you?"

"Nope, just confident. Shoot the target."

"I thought you were going to teach me how."

"First I have to see what you're doing wrong, don't I?"

With a sigh I take quick aim and shoot at the wall, missing the target far to the left.

Effy laughs, "Don't take your time or anything."

I roll my eyes again, but can't seem to keep the scowl I'm aiming for on my face.

"So what am I doing wrong then?"

"First we have to fix your stance." She steps in front of me and puts her hands on my hips. Her touch makes me shiver, her hands must be cold. She gently pushes my right side and pulls my left. "Put this foot forward slightly, this one back. Bend your knees a bit, you feel balanced?"

"Yeah," She pushes my shoulder roughly and I lose my footing and step backwards, "Bitch..."

She smirks, "Try again." I reposition myself and she shoves me again, but this time I hold my place, "Better." She steps away from me, "Now aim."

I stare down the barrel at the target. She walks around me, looking me up and down, and then steps right in front of me as she studies my grip on the gun.

"Finger off the trigger, don't need you shooting me as well."

"Fuck off."

My laughter stops abruptly when she puts her hand over mine on the gun, I'm surprised to find that her hands are actually quite warm.

"Hold it higher on the handle and tighter." She pushes my hands around a bit, testing the strength of my grip. "Good, now focus your eyes here," She puts her finger on the far sights of the gun before stepping away, allowing me to focus, "Take your time, slow your breathing." Her voice is so quiet I can hardly hear it, "When you pull the trigger, don't fuck around. Pull it hard."

My finger hovers against the trigger as I aim carefully. I take a few deep breaths to calm my racing heart, I hadn't realized it was beating so fast until now. The kick doesnt feel as strong when I finally pull the trigger. I drop the gun to my side as I take a few steps towards the target, making sure I'm seeing it properly. I didn't hit the center, but I came pretty damn close, a lot closer than I usually would be.

"Holy fuck!"

"Told you."

I turn back to her and see that smug little grin on her face. Cocky bitch. I cross my arms over my chest defensively.

"That's from standing still, but that's hardly going to help me on the run, which I usually am."

"If you can't shoot properly while you're still, you'll never be able to do it on the run."

I'm trying not to let how excited I am show, but her amused smile tells me that I'm failing, "Thanks Effy."

She leans back against the wall, "Anytime. Do it again, I bet you can hit the center."

.

"Wait, hold on, you hear that?"

I put my hand on Effy's arm to stop her from stepping from our hiding place. We're just around the corner from the car, we've been waiting for a couple minutes to make sure it's safe to make the last stretch. It took us ages to get here, we nicked a bottle of wine on the way, which made for a lot more laughing and a lot less productivity. Drinking may not be the smartest thing to do while wandering the streets, but fuck it, a little wine never hurt anybody.

"Hear what?"

"That noise. There's someone over there."

"I think you're just drunk—where you going?" I cross the street quickly and crouch down behind a group of tables of an outdoor cafe. Effy joins me a second later and I point out the zombie that we can now see from our new point of view.

"See?"

We watch her for a second, mounted over a fresh kill, tearing it apart. Then I remember it's exactly like that day with Emily before we came to London, when we watched that woman get killed and I couldn't hit the shot.

"Shit…hold the wine."

The liquid sloshes around when I shove the bottle into Effy's hands and step into the street. It's not quite as far as that shot was, but I'm a little tipsy, so I think it evens out. I raise the gun, aim carefully, imagine staring at a shoddy target drawn on a wall, and pull the trigger.

The first shot clips her shoulder, the second misses as she tries to clamber off her kill and to her feet, but the third hits in the head and she falls to the ground, twitching for a moment.

"Ha! Fuck yeah! That's right, bitch!"

Effy covers my mouth with her hand, laughing as she tries to shut me up, "Shh there might be more. Get in the car, let's go home."

.

It's late by the time we get back, we figured those two would want more time alone, so we were in no hurry. We get to our floor and I stumble over a piece of splintered wood. Looking around I see that almost all the doors along the corridor are damaged.

"The fuck did they do?"

We both hurry into the flat, slightly worried that something has happened, but once we're inside we know that everything is fine. There are new additions to the room, including a sofa with two girls snogging away like they've just discovered how good kissing can be. It could be worse, at least they're still clothed. But it's still a harsh and sobering reminder that Emily's found someone and I'm still alone.

"Fucks sake!"

They break apart quickly and Emily continues undoing Naomi's half-unwrapped bandage, both of them trying to hide guilty smiles.

Naomi clears her throat, "Everything go okay?"

"Yeah, fine. What the fuck happened to the other flats?"

Emily covers Naomi's stitches with two large Band-Aids, apparently it's done bleeding for the most part, so the gauze is unnecessary.

"I was looking for stronger medication for Naomi," She gestures around the room, "Found some other stuff on the way."

"Do we have to watch you two suck each other's faces off all day from now on? You have rooms you know, please don't shag out here."

I storm away, down the hall towards the bathroom, and a realization hits me. They don't have a room to go to, not of their own at least. Shit…our little sleeping arrangement is going to have to change. Emily is too nice to ever ask me to leave, but she'll want me out of there eventually. I go to our room instead and start shoving my clothes into a bag and sorting through our shit, trying to find everything that's mine.

Emily appears in the doorway shortly after, "You're not pissed, are you?"

"Nope."

"What're you doing?"

"Moving my shit into the empty room."

She steps further into the room, "Why?"

"Getting out of your way."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I know you'll want to sleep with Naomi eventually and I know you'll never ask me to leave. So I'm getting out of your way."

"What the fuck?" She looks nervous, a little scared, "No…you don't have to do this. Me and Naomi haven't even talked about that. I thought you weren't pissed."

"I'm not doing this because I'm pissed. You'll talk about it with her eventually, and when you do, you won't have to kick me out."

"But…I don't want you to go."

I want to tell her that I don't want to go either, but I don't want to make her feel bad. I know leaving so soon is probably unnecessary, but I want to make sure I'm not in the way.

"We're adults Emily, I think we can handle sleeping alone."

I brush by her and throw the clothes into the other bedroom. She sits on the bed and watches me silently as I make a few trips between the rooms. When I gather the last of my clothes I stop in the doorway, she looks so sad I know I have to say something.

"Hey...Don't feel bad, I was expecting this. I really am happy for you."

The corner of her mouth twitches up for a second and I take the last of my shit into the other room, dropping it on the pile I've made in the middle of the floor. The bed creaks as I rip the sheets off the mattress. This was a teenage boy's bed, who knows how many times he's wacked off under these blankets, I'm not taking any chances so I replace them with a fresh set from the linen closet in the hall. When I finally get myself and the bed ready, I lay against the cold, unwelcoming sheets and stare at the ceiling, realizing I'm not really tired at all.

The darkness is interrupted only by a blinking red light coming from the floor beside the bed somewhere, just bright enough to annoy me. I dig around and find the kid's cell phone, charging and blinking away, alerting anyone who cares to notice of the missed calls and texts. I flip it open and find 21 missed calls, almost as many voicemails, and 46 text messages. Most of the calls are from one of his parents or a girl called Rachel. The texts mostly read something along the lines of "Are you okay?" or "Where are you?". It reminds me of the first few days, frantically calling and trying to find everyone you know. Each day more and more calls would go straight to voicemail because the phone died and there was no one around to charge it. I shut the phone off and toss it back onto the ground, no reason to depress myself by looking through all that shit.

The room is eerily quiet, I'm not used to it, I haven't slept alone in months and I forgot how boring it can be. Emily and me would stay up for hours, just talking and laughing about nothing if one of us couldn't sleep. That's mostly why I didn't want to tell her about Naomi, I did want them to figure it out for themselves and it was hilarious watching them tiptoe around it for so long, but I also knew that the longer they stayed away from each other, the longer I'd have Emily. We've been together for so long, and now she's found someone else to rely on, to really put her trust in, and I'm left with no one.

"You don't have to sleep alone tonight."

"Jesus!" Bitch scared the shit out of me. Effy flicks the switch on the wall, flooding the room with light and revealing herself leaning against the door frame.

"…Or any night."

"What?"

"They've decided to sleep together tonight, and I assume it will be permanent, so it appears I have an empty side of the bed. You're welcome to it if you want."

It's crazy how quickly her and I have become friends. Sometimes it feels like I've known her for ages, and I really think we would have been friends if we had met before all this happened. But still, I'd hardly consider us sleeping buddies.

"Think about it?"

"Umm…yeah, thanks."

With a nod of the head she's gone, returning me to darkness as she steps out of the room. I stare at the empty doorframe for a few minutes after she disappears before laying back in the pillows. The silence seems heavier now that it has been interrupted, reminding me of how alone I am in this room and just how not used to it I am.

I toss around for at least an hour, trying to force myself to sleep, but it's useless. Me and Emily have shared a room almost our whole lives, I'm not used to sleeping alone and I finally admit to myself that I don't like it.

I slip quietly out of bed and peak into Effy's room, or maybe it's our room now. Effy has her back to me, her breathing even, it looks like she's sleeping. I sneak across the room and into the bed, trying not to wake her, but apparently it was pointless.

She turns towards me as I'm getting comfortable, "I didn't expect you so soon."

"Why not?"

"I thought you'd be thinking it over for at least another hour."

"Yeah well that bed was a piece of shit, figured this one would be more comfortable."

She smiles, "I'm sure that's it…goodnight Katie."

**Thanks for reading, leave me a review and you're my favorite**


	11. Blowing Off Steam

**Chapter 11 - Blowing off Steam**

The door creaks and my eyes pop open, hoping to see Katie coming back into the room. For a second I'm disappointed that it's not her, but that feeling vanishes quickly when Naomi walks through the door instead. When she sees me curled up in bed, practically in the fetal position, her obvious concern worsens and she crosses the room to sit on the of the bed with me.

"What's going on? Why'd Katie move her stuff? Did you two fight? Are you okay?"

I almost smile at her worried string of questions, "I'm okay. We didn't fight, she just decided to move herself out."

"She didn't say why?"

Shit…if I tell her Katie left to make room for her, she'll feel pressured into it, and that's the last thing I want. "No, not really. She's not pissed at me or anything." I would know it if Katie is lying about being happy for me and is actually pissed; if Katie Fitch is angry with you, everybody knows it. "There must be something bothering her though, but I don't know what it is."

Naomi shrugs, "Maybe she just wants to be alone."

"Yeah…maybe. I feel like shit though, like I might have pushed her away. I miss her already."

Naomi looks at me seriously for a second, then studies the relatively empty room around us, and smiles as she looks back to me, "Do you um, do you want me to sleep with you?" Her eyes widen when she realizes what she said, "I mean…in the bed with you. I know you don't like sleeping alone, and you're obviously upset that Katie left, so I thought maybe you'd want someone in here with you and—"

This time I do smile at her worry. She shuts up immediately when I grab her hand off the bed and pull her arm slightly until she looks at me, "I know what you meant, and you're right. Will you stay?"

Her smile lights up the room, "Yeah, of course I will. I'll go let Effy know, I'll be back." She gives my hand a little squeeze before leaving.

I watch until her blonde head disappears around the door and then realization dawns on me. Jesus fucking Christ what am I doing? I had no previous intention of asking Naomi to stay tonight and for good reason. This is all way too fast, I kissed her yesterday and now we're bed buddies? Fucking hell…what is it about this girl that kicks all rational thought in the balls and slaughters my self-control? When I plan to give her a fairly innocent kiss I end up trying to unbutton her shirt thirty seconds later, and now I've gone and invited her into my bed after making it clear that we should take things slowly.

As much as I'm panicking about the night ahead, I have to admit it will be nice to have her here. Katie up and leaving is really getting to me, I just don't know why she felt the need to leave so quickly. It's going to be weird tonight without her, but there's something about Naomi that makes everything at least a little bit better. Just because she's in my bed doesn't mean we have to do anything, we can just sleep. It's not like she'll be coming on to me anyway, she knows I'm upset about Katie and that I don't want her exerting herself. It'll be nice to take things slow, to wake up next to her before taking that step, attempt to live a normal life for once instead of the rushed chaos that we're always going through. Even if my sex drive disagrees with me, I know there's no reason to rush, we really do have all the time in the world.

Rule of the night: don't have sex with Naomi Campbell. One rule, should be easy enough. But then again, I had rules along the line of 'don't let Naomi know how much you want her,' then I went and kissed her, so that shows how good I am at following rules.

.

My stomach flutters when Naomi emerges from the bathroom and slides into the bed next to me. The fact that I have a stunningly beautiful girl in my bed inserts itself firmly into my brain and stares me right in the face, daring me to do something about it. For a minute the silly idea that I'll be able to stick to my side of the bed holds strong, until I give in and snuggle into her side. It feels like my hands are magnetized to her, I have to constantly remind them to stay put when she's around.

It's a bit strange, having her here, almost like it's not real. Being able to touch Naomi like I've always wanted to is such a new privilege, and every time I do I can't figure out how I waited so long. Sometimes it's unsettling how strongly I feel about her, how much I want to know everything I can about this girl and lose myself in her completely. But right now, inhaling her scent with every breath and my hand itching to dive under the shirt my fingers are brushing against, it doesn't bother me at all.

Even though I can't resist touching her, I'm careful that our position doesn't get too intimate and that my hands don't start to wander. I know exactly what that will lead to, and if it gets there while we're here, wrapped in my bed, separated from the world, I doubt I'd be able to stop myself if I tried.

"Thanks for staying, it would be weird being alone."

Naomi sighs dramatically, "You owe me for this one. I don't know how you forced me into this horrible situation." I flick her side as she tries to stifle her laughter, "Have you figured out what's wrong with Katie yet?"

I have to take a second to reorganize my Katie ideas after the thought-lobotomy that always happens to my brain when Naomi is within arm's reach of me.

"At first I thought that she was feeling lonely, because of me and you, like she's afraid of losing me. But she's not acting like she's lonely, usually she holds on tighter rather than putting more distance between us. You should have seen her when I came out and had my first girlfriend, she clung to me like a fucking koala, so I don't think that's it."

"Maybe she's jealous, she sounded pretty pissed when they came home and caught us."

"Maybe. That'd be weird though, I don't think I've ever seen Katie jealous of anyone."

"We should find her a man."

"Think Cook would be up for it?"

Naomi laughs, causing both of our bodies to shake, "Jesus…more than up for it, I'm sure he'd be ecstatic."

When her laughter fades she slips out from under me suddenly and turns onto her side, propping herself up with her good arm, a curious smile on her face.

"I've been wondering…do you think we ever would have met? You know, if none of this ever happened."

My hand starts absently playing with the loose fabric at the end of her sleeve as I stare at our hands, trying to keep my face from being discovered, so maybe she won't know how much time I've spent thinking about this. This girl has some kind of gravity to her that I haven't been able to escape since we met, I'm sure it would have pulled me in at some point.

"Yeah, I think so."

"Where do you think?"

"I don't know…it could have been anywhere. Probably not during uni though, you said you were planning to come here for school, right?."

Naomi nods with a thoughtful look on her face, "But I'd be in Bristol over the summers."

"True…maybe it'd be at a party."

She groans, "No, I hate house parties. They're all the same, a bunch of wankers trying to get laid and spilling drinks on me in the process."

"Exactly…Cook and Effy would have dragged you there so you'd be moping around, probably outside smoking or something." She smiles, and I know it sounds accurate, "And I'd come out for some air because I'd be way too drunk for my own good, but I'd be just drunk enough to ask you for a cigarette and flirt with you without being nervous."

She looks away for a second, trying to hold back her smile, "Yeah? What would you say?"

"Hmm...I'd probably ask you why you're moping outside alone, and you'd say, 'to get away from the wankers who are only trying to get laid and spilling drinks on me in the process,'" She rolls her eyes and laughs, "Then I'd charm my way into getting your number."

"Sounds plausible. I always imagine you'd have a girlfriend when we met."

"You've been thinking about it?"

"Oh shut it, like you haven't. You'd have a girlfriend, but I'd be so irresistible that I'd win you over." She smiles smugly, "It would be horrible and heartbreaking along the way, but I would have liked the chance to steal you from someone."

I lose myself in the idea of the life I was supposed to live. A life that includes Naomi and I celebrating getting a job or graduating university, not a particularly gruesome killing of what was once a human being. I would take the heartbreak a thousand times over to be able to have even a day of that life.

.

I slip out of bed and into the bathroom as quietly as possible before I do something stupid. I woke up after maybe a few hours of sleep and my hands were coming dangerously close to action as I thought of how easy it would be to continue where I left off earlier today, how fucking great it was to kiss her neck, how close I was to her tits…

Fuck, shit, don't think about that. I splash cold water on my face to wash away the thoughts and silently scold myself in the mirror. I have a rule to follow, one that I was very sure I wanted to follow earlier in the night, when my thoughts and body weren't completely surrounded by Naomi.

When I've calmed down a bit I walk back into the room, only for my efforts to be deemed useless as I lean against the wall and am reminded of exactly what's waiting for me in my bed. I watch her for a minute as she dozes peacefully, cuddling a pillow tightly to her chest. When she turns onto her back and I get a glimpse of that fucking face bathed in the moonlight, making her skin practically glow, my mind changes in an instant.

It's funny how sometimes I can convince myself that I'll stick to my plans. It's like laying in your bed at night and deciding you're going to get up early and get stuff done before work, but when that alarm goes off you know it isn't happening. I was so sure that I wouldn't be doing this tonight, but the alarm in my head is going off, waking me up to the reality of what I'm staring at. Fuck rules and bullet wounds and having plenty of time, I want to fuck this beautiful girl and there's no reason to waste any more time.

With the biggest smile on my face, I cross the room and crawl onto the bed until I'm hovering over her. I'm hit with a sudden attack of nerves when I look down at her for the first time. But I push past it and lower myself to kiss her throat. When I taste her skin again I'm reminded of how much I fucking need this and forget about all that nonsense. She stirs at the touch of my lips and I push myself up to find her eyes half open and a lazy smile on her face.

"Hey…you're back."

Her voice is slow and sleepy, I know she's not really awake, "Yeah, sorry I woke you. I tried to be quiet."

She plays with a piece of my hair dangling next to her head, "S'okay…you suck at being quiet you know." She laughs sleepily at her own comment and I shiver as her hands wrap around me to pull me into her. I continue on with my plan to wake her up, placing slow kisses along her throat and collarbone, waiting for her to realize what's happening.

When my lips reach her ear I feel her hands tense on my back and then they push me away gently so she can look at me. I smile at her as she shakes the fuzziness from her head and her eyes open wide, finally awake and piecing together the situation.

"Am I dreaming?"

"Nope." I sit up, straddling her hips, and start unbuttoning her shirt as I talk, "I know what I said, about having all this time on our hands and taking it slowly, and I know you're hurt, but I can't stand it. I want you Naomi…" I undo the last button and push the shirt aside, almost forgetting to finish my sentence at the beautiful sight of skin and cleavage I've revealed, "…and I'm tired of waiting."

"Thank God…" Naomi grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me back down to her, our lips and tongues colliding forcefully. I don't know why or how I was fooling myself into thinking we could take it slow, considering how she seems to take me over with just a kiss. Her hands find the bottom of my shirt and start to pull it up along my back.

When she moves her arm too fast and high trying to get the shirt over my head, I hear her take a sharp intake of breath. I grab her injured arm, stopping her from hurting herself more, and sit up, removing the fabric for her. She pulls me down to her again, this time by my neck, and doesn't release me until her lips have found mine again. She kisses down my neck to my breasts, teasing me with her tongue, and whispers my name against my chest, before she rolls us over and is suddenly on top of me.

"Fucking hell!" She sits up quickly, cradling her arm, she must have tried to support her weight with it, "I keep fucking forgetting about it." The image of her shirt unbuttoned, giving me a tantalizing view as she straddles me drives me crazy, but the frustration is obvious in her face and I wish I could touch her until she never felt pain or anger ever again. This wound will be annoying, but I'm sure we'll manage to work around it. For the things I'm about to do to her, it doesn't matter what shape her arm is in.

I sit up, gently pushing the shirt off her shoulders as I go, and whisper against her lips before I kiss her, "Relax…it's okay."

The look on her face as I remove the rest of her clothes to explore her and make her yell my name in ecstasy for the first time tells me exactly what I've been trying to deny. When she collapses on top of me, trapping my hand between us and inside of her, and gives me a kiss that steals the breath from my lungs, I know I'm starting to fall hard for this girl and it's going to take a zombie ambush at my bedroom door to get me out of this bed anytime soon.

.

This is the second morning I've woken up to Naomi in my bed. That first night together turned into the whole next day together. Everyone has those days where you're forced to leave your lover to attend to your responsibilities. Class or work is the last thing you want to do, but you still drag yourself away from the naked girl in your bed to do it. But Naomi and I don't have any responsibilities, not a thing in the world to do. There are no traffic jams or lines in busy cafés waiting for us to get stuck in, no professors lecturing to a room full of uninterested students, happy to give you a dirty look when you walk in late. Not even a buzzing cell phone in the corner, causing one of us to beg the other to ignore it. We've hardly left the bedroom unless one of our stomachs growled, reminding us that tits and fanny is not all a lady needs to survive. We weren't just making up for lost time, but taking the chance to find out what it's like to just be together without the stress of a damaged life.

It feels different between us now, well at least it does for me. I've let myself acknowledge the strength of our connection, and let myself feel it and enjoy it without panicking about what she's thinking, if she feels the same. As far as I know, there's no need to worry because sometimes she looks at me like I'm the only thing she can see. Even if she's just fucking me around, I know how I feel and I'm going to indulge in it until she doesn't let me anymore. I never thought I'd feel like this again, and this new life suddenly seems much less daunting.

I feel Naomi's hand on my stomach start to move and I discover that she's woken up, smiling sweetly at me as her hand finds its way up to my neck and she kisses me.

"Morning."

"Emily, it's almost two in the afternoon."

"Details…" I move closer to her since it's been too long since I've felt her skin, and I fully intend to spend the majority of the day just like yesterday, until a pounding on the door brings the outside world crashing back down around us.

.

* * *

.

A sweet scent invades me before I'm even fully awake. I snuggle into the source, not bothering to figure out what it is until something tickles my face and I pull back, opening my eyes. The first thing I see is long, brown hair, and then I find the girl connected to it. Why the fuck is my face in Effy's hair? I take a second in my sleepy state to track down the rest of my body; hand wrapped around stomach, tits pressed into back, a bum fitting snugly into my crotch. Effy Stonem is currently my little spoon.

How the fuck did this happen? I distinctly remember falling asleep on my own side of the bed, not intruding all over her personal space like this. Yesterday I woke up with her snuggled into my side slightly and didn't think much of it, but judging by our current position, I enjoyed it a bit more than I thought I did. But unlike yesterday, when I moved away from her as soon as I woke up, this morning I have yet to move.

At that thought I release my hold on her and reposition myself on the other side of the bed, realizing immediately how much less comfortable and cold it is over here. That must be why it happened, she was just comfortable and warm, nothing wrong with wanting a cuddle when you're cold in the middle of the night.

Effy moves around a bit and I freeze, holding my breath so I can hear if she's awake or not. I really don't want to face the awkwardness of a "sorry I was just spooning you" conversation. All I hear is slow, steady breathing though so I should be safe, but who knows how long we've been like that so she could have woken up to it earlier, I hope I haven't creeped her out. Getting back to sleep is unlikely since I'm so uncomfortable now, so I slip out of bed, wishing I could carry that smell around with me all day.

I subtly adjust my position on the couch to get a better look at Effy, she's been staring at the damn bookshelf for ages. When I'm able to catch sight of her face, I can tell from here that her eyes aren't moving, she's just staring. The bitch isn't looking for something to read any more than I am, she's probably miles away. She was a bit off yesterday and it only got worse today, like something is constantly on her mind, eating at her, and I think I might know what it is.

A small smile flickers across her face when I lean against the shelf next to her and her eyes finally start scanning again.

"What's up, babes? You seem off." You're not the only one who can be annoyingly perceptive.

She answers quickly, her eyes never leaving the words in front of her, "Nothing at all."

"Sure about that?"

"Yep."

"You're a shit liar, I can see straight through you."

She finally looks at me with raised eyebrows, "Likewise, you ever gonna let that smile falter?"

My smile does falter, Effy's never snapped at me like that. She looks away from me quickly and I force myself to not bitch right back at her. Something must be wrong with her if she's acting like this.

"It's Cook isn't it? You thought we'd find him by now."

She sighs, "Yes Katie, that's exactly it, well done." She yanks a book off the shelf and curls up into an armchair, propping it open against her legs.

Well fuck, that's not exactly what I was expecting. I was hoping for the chance to talk and make her feel better, but I guess she isn't going to give it to me, apparently we're not close enough for her to let me in.

But I know exactly who she will let in, or at least someone who will annoy her enough until she's forced to let her in. It's about time the shag fest is ended anyway. I march straight to Naomi and Emily's room, hoping my timing is good and I don't once again have to hear my sister or her little girlfriend mid-orgasm.

I pound on the door and yell through the wood, "Enough of the fucking pride parade lezzers!" I hear muffled voices for a few seconds before I lower my voice so the sound doesn't drift to Effy in the other room, "Naomi…Effy needs you."

Not five minutes after I walked back out into the living room, a flustered-looking Naomi hurries down the hall, looking around the room frantically until her eyes find Effy. Good to see at least something is able to rouse her from the sex coma.

"What's going on?"

Effy peers over the top of her book, "Well I've just reached page 11," She looks around the room trying to spot a reason for Naomi's worry, "...And that about sums it up." She gives her a look that clearly says, "Anymore stupid questions?"

Naomi stares me down, anger building in her expression, probably assuming I only said that to get them out of the room. I glance at Effy to make sure her attention is firmly back on the words in front of her and gesture for Naomi to follow me to the kitchen.

As soon as we're out of view she whips me around and throws her hands out to the side, whispers, "What the fuck?"

"Chill, this is serious."

"Yeah? Because it looks like you just lied about my best friend's mood to lure me out of the bedroom."

I stand up straighter, doing my best to match her height and be as intimidating as possible while keeping to a whisper, "Well it isn't, but that is my sister you've been fucking for the past day and a half, so how about you show some respect, shut the fuck up and listen to me for a second before jumping to conclusions, and later we can talk about how much you'll regret it when you fuck her up. So watch your fucking step, Blondie."

She rolls her eyes but still leans against the counter in defeat, "Fine. Alright. What's going on then?"

"That's the thing, I don't know. She's been different yesterday and today, I think it's Cook. Maybe she's thinking about him more because someone that's supposed to be her best friend and trying to find him has been locked away in a room getting shagged for the past two days."

She stands back up and takes a few steps closer, looking appalled at what I said, "Don't you fucking throw that in my face. You think I'm not constantly thinking about him too? Maybe "fucking Emily" as you so respectfully put it is the only thing that helps me cope. Emily is the only person capable of taking my mind off of him and actually allows me to feel an ounce of happiness for a change. And I don't appreciate you assuming I'm going to fuck her up, Emily means a lot to me and I have no intention of fucking up the only thing that's good around here." She pauses for a second, taking in her own statement, "Don't talk to me like I'm a slag who just wants to get laid but as someone who cares about Emily just like you do."

"Do not make the mistake of thinking you care about her as much as I do. We're twins Naomi, that's a bit stronger of a bond than someone you met three fucking weeks ago and you like to see naked. Let's get back to the point of how Effy is obviously upset but you'd rather stand here arguing with me than go figure out why. Shows how much you care."

"That's the first good point you've made since I met you Katie, I don't know why I'm wasting time talking to you." She turns away from me but stops almost immediately and we both notice Effy standing in the doorway, smirking as she watches us argue. "Shit…Effy."

"Surprised to see me?" Fuck, both of us forgot that we were supposed to be whispering, "Yelling tends to draw a crowd, you know."

Emily appears and slips past Effy into the kitchen, looking wildly between the three of us, "What the fuck is going on? I heard yelling."

"These two were arguing."

Emily's hand flies to her hip and she stares us down, reminding me way too much of our mother, "About what?"

Naomi starts stammering out an answer, but Effy saves her, "About us actually. You should have heard them, it was sweet if you think about it."

"What?"

Jesus, enough of this bullshit, there are more important things to be discussing, "We need to talk about Cook." Three heads snap towards me, daring me to continue. I know we've all been thinking about it, it's time someone brought it to attention. "It's been three weeks, we need to start considering the option that he isn't here…in London I mean." I'm not about to put forth the idea that he's dead. I'm sure they think about that enough, they don't need me shoving it in their face, they'll come to that conclusion on their own time if necessary.

As much as I'd like to see this kid alive and finally witness something good happen, I've never thought he would be. What are the chances that he's survived this long alone? I'm sure he would have found his way back to Bristol if he was alive, what kind of person wouldn't go back to find whatever friends and family they have left?

"What are you suggesting?" I thought Naomi's voice was cold and angry before, but it's reached a whole new level at the mention of her potentially dead best friend.

I hadn't really thought of suggestions, all I know is that what we're doing obviously isn't working. "I don't know, I guess either going somewhere else or thinking of something else to get his attention if he is here."

"What the fuck do you care? He wasn't your friend, it's none of your business."

Emily shoots a look of hurt at Naomi at the accusation that one of us doesn't care about finding him. It goes unnoticed by Naomi as she holds her death glare on me.

"It became our business when we decided to move in here."

"We don't need your pessimism and you insinuating that he's dead!"

I tried to stay calm, but I'm not about to let her yell at me and twist my words.

"I'm not insinuating anything! Get it through that thick skull of yours that I'm trying to fucking help you!"

"We don't need any help from you, we—"

Emily's hand over her mouth ends that sentence. Her voice is quiet compared to our yelling but still alarmingly harsh, "Will you two please shut the fuck up." Her hand falls from Naomi's face and she looks between us, pleading. "What is wrong with you two? It's one thing for you to bicker all the time but this is just ridiculous. Why do you constantly have to be at each other's throats?"

The question is never answered, because a distant, but still alarmingly loud crashing noise jerks our attention from each other and we look around for the source, our eyes landing on the empty doorway. The lack of Effy sends us scrambling out of the kitchen, looking for broken glass and possibly a broken girl to accompany it, but neither are found in the living room.

"Effy?" Naomi is answered by another crash and we all look to the wall, realizing the noise is coming from the next flat. We're silently panicking as we run, grabbing guns on the way out and bolting to the next door.

I wasn't sure what to expect to see when we found Effy. In that ten seconds a million possibilities ran through my head, but none of them had Effy looking so…happy.

She's standing in the middle of the room with an actual smile on her face amongst a puddle of shattered glass. There's a bat in the middle of the frame of what was once a glass coffee table. When she turns to face us fully the crunch of the shards under her feet cracks through the room.

"What the fuck Effy?"

"It was getting a bit tense in there. Thought we should blow off some steam."

"Blow off some steam?"

"Yeah, it's fun, here." She picks the bat up from the floor, flips it and holds the handle towards Naomi. Naomi stares at her like she's insane until Emily steps forward and takes it from her hands. A smile creeps onto her face as she looks around for her target. Naomi and I flinch when she suddenly turns and slams the bat into the telly until it's beat to shit.

She laughs when the damage is done and turns back to us, "That was fucking great." Her gze jumps between Naomi and I, "What are you waiting for?" The statement immediately shoves Naomi into action and she steps into the room to join them.

Within minutes they're all laughing and destroying the place in front of me. I watch in amusement as cherished belongings are shattered and anything that can be lifted is thrown into walls. But the one thing I'm watching most is Effy, and I can't help but be in awe. Minutes ago Naomi and me were ready to push Emily out of the way so we could rip each other's heads off, and now it's practically forgotten. This girl always knows what to do, I don't know how she does it, I guess it's just something about her. I think back to when I first met her, how she was standing there smiling with a gun pointed at me. There was something about that smile, I couldn't get her face out of my head after we left them.

Her movements slow and her smile grows when she catches me watching her. For the first time in a while I find myself speechless, what do you say to a girl that has the answer to everything? After a few seconds she shrugs, brushing off what she's done like it's no big deal. She crooks a finger, beckoning me to her, and I gladly oblige and join the destruction.

.

"Are either of you going to apologize?"

"No."

Naomi and me look at each other after our simultaneous answer, and I almost laugh. Almost.

Effy waves it off, "Whatever. The more important issue is Cook." We're sitting on the floor of the ruined flat, carefully placed around the broken glass. We avoid the other's eyes as we think about where he could be and what we're going to do about it. "We should give it a couple more weeks, if we don't find him by then, we'll consider other options. Deal?"

We all nod, hoping desperately that it doesn't come to that. He isn't even my friend and I find myself worried about him, I can't imagine how Effy and Naomi feel. I watch Naomi stare blankly off into space, now that I pay attention to her she seems much more bothered by this than Effy. She doesn't snap out of it until Emily, with her head in Naomi's lap, plucks the cigarette from her lips and steals a drag. They share a sickly sweet smile and a kiss, and I remember how much I'm going to have to witness this sappy bullshit from now on.

Hurried footsteps and voices float up from the street below to break the silence. When it's clear that the voices are frantic and panicked, Emily stands and leans out of the freshly shattered, nearly floor-to-ceiling window. After watching for a few seconds, she exhales as she flicks the cigarette out of the window and turns and runs for the door.

I roll my eyes as I get up to follow while Naomi shouts at her; at least now I'm not the only one that has to worry about Emily when she tries to be the bloody hero all the time. We find our guns quickly and head after her, Naomi yelling and trying to slow her down the whole way. We see Emily slip into a building just as we reach the street. What the fuck is she doing? Does she not realize how hard it would have been to find her if we were just two seconds later and didn't see where she went? She has to stop doing this shit, we're gonna have a talk after whatever ordeal we're running towards is over.

Halfway across the street we hear screams from inside. I know they're not Emily's screams, but they still send my heart rate through the roof as I open the door, ready to shoot. The small shop is surprisingly still when I walk in, extremely loud, but still. Emily is standing a few feet in front of the doorway, and it's not until I stand next to her that I piece together what happened.

There's a lifeless zombie on the floor in the corner, but that's hardly the worst thing in the room. The screams are coming from a woman, sat in the middle of the floor, gripping tightly to the man in her arms. Watching her I realize that she's not really screaming, but crying. There's blood oozing from the man's stomach, his face is pale, colored only by the blood smears from the woman's hands as she holds him and begs him to wake up. I don't know if she's oblivious to our presence or she just doesn't care, but she doesn't acknowledge us standing helplessly in the doorway.

I want to get out of here, run away from this heartbreaking scene, but I know I can't. None of us want to interrupt her, but we also don't want to leave her alone. We can't abandon her to be found by someone dangerous, she's safe as long as we're here.

I can't even fathom what it would be like to lose the only person you have left, for it to be me holding Emily's dead body, but I do know that I wouldn't want to face this world alone. I wouldn't want anyone to talk to or for them to try to comfort me, I would just want to be around people as a reminder that I'm not the only person still alive. When the woman's yelling dwindles to quieter sobs, I walk towards her slowly.

"You should come with us."

When I get within a few feet of her she leans away from me, "Get away…don't touch me." I freeze in my tracks, deciding what to do. I watch as her hand slowly rises to her shoulder and she pulls at the fabric, revealing a bloody wound that can only be a bite mark. All of us release a collective gasp, knowing this woman is slowly approaching death.

For the first time, the woman's eyes leave the man's face and she looks at us, one by one, until her gaze falls on me and then down to the shotgun dangling from my hand. She gently lays the man on the floor in front of her and kisses him for the last time. When she sits up, her eyes close and she sighs heavily.

"Kill me."

My breath catches, I'm hardly able to speak, "What?"

Her eyes open and fresh tears fall when she looks back up to my face, "Please…I can't live without him." She grabs the barrel of my shotgun and holds it to her face, "I don't want to be one of them." Her voice is breaking so much I can hardly make out the words.

"No!" I hold the gun as far away from the trigger as possible as I try to pull it from her grasp. I can't just fucking shoot somebody, that's asking way too much. Her eyes are pleading with me as she holds the barrel tightly.

"Please…" I stop struggling for a second and study the desperation on her face. I know it should be done, within a matter of hours she'll be a monster, ready to kill me in a second. I'd be doing her a favor, really, sparing her the horror of turning into what we've all been running from. But I don't think I can stare a living human in the face as I pull the trigger to end her life.

I feel a hand over mine on the gun and a presence next to me. Another hand pulls at my face until the woman's dying eyes are replaced with Effy's. I sigh when I see her face, relief flooding over me. Effy is here, everything's okay. I realize how much I'm shaking as her still hand holds my face and the other takes the gun from me.

"It's okay Katie, it's okay. Go outside." Her voice rises to address the other two but her eyes never leave mine. "All of you, get out of here."

She gives me a small shove towards the door and I don't hesitate in following Naomi and Emily out of it, but just before I'm free of this situation the woman calls me back.

"Wait..." I turn and find the strangers eye's again, still pouring tears, but now she almost looks relieved, "Thank you...for caring."

The thanks of a dying woman sends me into tears as well. I nod and tell my lips to smile, but I know they don't listen. Right when I reach the pavement outside Emily hugs me and I finally feel like I can breathe again.

All three of us flinch a few seconds later as the gunshot echoes into the empty street.

Effy emerges with blood sprayed on her shirt, the gun hanging limply at her side. She stops in the doorway and looks at me, her eyes conveying a million words, but I can't make any of them out, like she's yelling at me in a foreign language.

Without a word she walks past us back towards the flat.

.

Effy immediately gets in the shower when we get upstairs, and I'm left to wait impatiently for her to get out, replaying the scene over and over in my head. I perk up when I hear her head straight into our bedroom and shut the door. I'm guessing that means she wants to be alone, but I really don't fucking care. I need to see her.

I'm about to head down the hall but first I turn to Emily, who's sitting in a daze on the couch. I stand in front of her until she looks up to me, and then slap her as hard as I can. Her hand flies to her quickly reddening face, but she doesn't question it or seem surprised.

"I'm sorry for slapping you. But I think you can figure out why, we're going to talk later." I leave her with Naomi, I'm sure she'll be happy to handle the comforting of Emily and fuming about why I did it.

I close our bedroom door behind me and get into bed with Effy, instantly pulling her close, not for a second worrying about invading her personal space or creeping her out. She doesn't seem taken aback by my embrace at all, in fact she seems to welcome it and grips me tightly.

I'm silent for a while, I'm sure she already knows how thankful I am.

"Thank you Effy, you didn't have to do that."

I listen to her heart pounding quickly in her chest as I wait for her response, "Yes I did. I didn't want you to do that."

"So you did it? That's not much better."

"Better me than you. I didn't want you to have another thing haunting you."

I pull her closer, hoping some of her selflessness will rub off on me, "Are you this protective of everyone you know?"

I feel her head shake, "Only the important ones."


End file.
